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HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


FROM THE 


ACCESSION OF JAMES II, 


x 


THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY 


VOTE, 


New Yor«K 
8. W. GREEN’S SON, PUBLISHER 


74 anp 76 BEEKMAN STREET 


1882 


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HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


CHAPTER I. 


_I PURPOSE to write the history of England from the accession of 
King James the Second down toa time which is within the memory 


- of men still living. I shali recount the errors which, in a few months, 


alienated a loyal gentry and priesthood from the House of Stuart. I 
shall trace the course of that revolution which terminated the long 
struggle between our sovereigns and their parliaments, and bound up 
together the rights of the people and the title of the reigning dynasty. 
I shall relate how the new settlement was, during many troubleu 

ears, successfully defended against foreign and domestic enemies; 

ow, under that settlement, the authority of law and the security of 
property were found to be compatible with a liberty of discussion 
and of individual action never before known; how, from the au- 
spicious union of order and freedom, sprang a prosperity of which 
the annals of human affairs had furnished no example; how our 
country, from a state of ignominious vassalage, rapidly rose to the 
place of umpire among European powers; how her opulence and her 
martial glory grew together; how, by wise and resolute good faith, 
was gradually established a public credit fruitful of marvels which to 
the statesmen of auy former age would have seemed incredible; how 
a gigantic commerce gave birth to a maritime power, compared with 
which every other maritime power, ancient or modern, sinks into in- 


significance; how Scotland, after ages of enmity, was at length united 


to England, not merely by legal bonds, but by indissoluble ties of 
interest and affection; how, in America, the British colonies rapidly 
became far mightier and wealthier than the realms which Cortes and 
Pizarro had added to the dominions of Charles the Fifth; how, in 
Asia, British adventurers founded an empire not less splendid and 
more durable than that of Alexander. 

Nor will it be less my duty faithfully to record disasters mingled 


_ with triumphs, and great national crimes and follies far more humili- 


ating than any disaster. It will be seen that even what we justly 
account our chief blessings were not without alloy. It will be seen 
that the system which effectually secured our liberties against the 


encroachments of kingly power gave birth to a new class of abuses 


from which absolute monarchies areexempt. It will beseen that, in 
consequence partly of unwise interference, and partly of unwise 


2 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


neglect, the increase of wealth and the extension of trade produced, 
together with immense good, some evils from which poor and rude ~ 
societies are free. It will be seen how, in two important dependen- 
cies of the crown, wrong was followed by just retribution; how im 
prudence and obstinacy broke the ties whieh bound the North 
American colonies to the parent state; how Ireland, cursed by the 
domination of race over race, and of religion over religion, remained 
indeed a member of the empire, but a withered and distorted mem- 
ber, adding no strength to the body politic, and reproachfully 
pointed at by all who feared or envied the greatness of England. 

Yet, unless I greatly deceive myself, the general effect of this 
chequered narrative will be to excite thankfulness in all religious 
minds, and hope in the breasts of all patriots. For the history of our 
country during the last hundred and sixty years is eminently the his- 
tory of physical, of moral, and of intellectual improvement. Those- 
who compare the age on which their lot has fallen with a golden age ~ - 
which exists only in their imagination may talk of degeneracy and 
decay: but no man who is correctly informed as to the past will be~ 
disposed to take a morose or desponding view of the present. 

I should very imperfectly execute the task which I have under: 
taken if I were merely to treat of battles and sieges, of the rise and 
fall of administrations, of intrigues in the palace, and of debates in 
the parliament. It will be my endeavour to relate the history of the 
people as well as the history of the government, to trace the progress of 
useful and ornamental arts, to describe the rise of religious sects and 
the changes of literary taste, to portray the manners of successive 
generations and not to pass by with neglect even the revolutions 
which have taken place in dress, furniture, repasts, and public 
amusements. I shall cheerfully bear the reproach of having de- 
scended below the dignity of history, if 1 can succeed in placing be 
fore the English of the nineteenth century a true picture of the life of © 
their ancestors, 

The events which I propose to relate form only a single act of a 
great and eventful drama extending through ages, and must he very 
imperfectly understood unless the plot of the preceding acts be well 
known. I shall therefore introduce my narrative by a slight sketch 
of the history of our country from the earliest times. I shall pass very - 
rapidly over many centuries: but I shall dwell at some length on the 
vicissitudes of that contest which the administration of King James 
the Second brought to a decisive crisis. * 

Nothing in the early existence of Britain indicated the greatness 


* In this, and in the next chapter, I have very seldom thought it necessary to 
cite authorities: for, in these chapters, I have not detailed events minutely, or 
used recondite materials; and the facts which I mention are for the most part 
such that a person tolerably well read in English history, if not already ap 
prised of them, will at least know where to look for evidence of them. In the 
subsequent chapters I shall carefully indicate the sources of my information, 


7 
7 
“— 


+ 
ie 
« 


Sie 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 3 


which she was destined to attain. Her inhabitants when first they 
became known to the Tyrian mariners, were little superior to the na- 
tives of the Sandwich Islands. She was subjugated by the Roman 
arms; but she received only a faint tincture of Roman arts and let- 
ters. Of the western provinces which obeyed the Cesars, she was 
the last that was conquered, and the first that was flung away. No 
magnificent remains of Latin porches and aqueducts are to be found 
in Britain. No writer of British birth is reckoned among the masters 
of Latin poetry andeloquence, It is not probable that the islanders 
were at any time generally familiar with the tongue of their Italian 
rulers. From the Atlantic to the vicinity of the Rhine the Latin has, 
during many centuries, been predominant. It drove out the Celtic; 
it was not driven out by the Teutonic; and it is at this day the basis 
of the French, Spanish and Portuguese languages. In our island the 
Latin appears never to have superseded the old Gaelic speech, and 
could not stand its ground against the German. 

The scanty and superficial civilisation which the Britons had de- 
rived from their southern masters was effaced by the calamities of the 
fifth century. In the continental kingdoms into which the Roman 
empire was then dissolved, the conquerors Jearned much from the 
conquered race. In Britain the conquered race became as barbarous 
as the conquerors. 

All the chiefs who founded Teutonic dynasties in the continental 
provinces of the Roman empire, Alaric, Theodoric, Clovis, Alboin, 
were zealous Christians. The followers of Ida and Cerdic, on the 
other hand, brought to their settlements in Britain all the supersti- 
tions of the Elbe. While the German princes who reigned at Paris, 


Toledo, Arles, and Ravenna listened with reverence to the instruc- 


tions of bishops, adored the relics of martyrs, and took part eagerly 
in disputes touching the Nicene theology, the rulers of Wessex and 
Mercia were still performing savage rites in the temples of Thor and 
Woden. 

The continental kingdoms which had risen on the ruins of the 
Western Empire kept up some intercourse with those eastern prov- 
inces where the ancient civilisation, though slowly fading away un- 
der the influence of misgovernment, might still astonish and instruct 
barbarians, where the court still exhibited the splendour of Diocle- 
tian and Constantine, where the public buildings were still adorned 
with the sculptures of Polycletus and the paintings of Apelles, and 
where laborious pedants, themselves destitute of taste, sense,-and 
spirit, could still read and interpret the masterpieces of Sophocles, of 
Demosthenes, and of Plato. From this communion Britain was cut 
oft. Her shores were, to the polished race which dwelt by the Bos- 

orus, objects of a mysterious horror, such as that with which the 
onians of the age of Homer had regarded the Straits of Scylla and 
the city of the Ltestrygonian cannibals, There was one province of 
our island in which, as Procopius had been told, the ground was cov- 


% 


4 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


ered with serpents, and the air was such that no man could inhale it | 
and live. To this desolate region the spirits of the departed were 
ferried over from the land of the Franks at midnight. A strange race 
of fishermen performed the ghastly office. The speech of the dead 
was distinctly heard by the boatmen: their weight made the keel sink 
deep in the water; but their forms were invisible to mortal eye. 
Such were the marvels which an able historian, the contemporary of 
Belisarius, of Simplicius, and of Trihbonian, gravely related in the 
rich and polite Constantinople, touching the country in which the 
founder of Constantinople had assumed the imperial purple. Con- 
cerning all the other provinces of the Western Empire we have con- 
tinuous information. It is only in Britain that an age of fable com 
pletely separates two ages of truth. Odoacer and Totila, Euric and. 
Thrasimund, Clovis, Fredegunda, and Brunechi'd, are historical mep 
and women. But Hengist and Horsa, Vortigerr and Rowena, Ar- 
thur and Mordred are mythical persons, whose very existence may 
be questioned, and whose adventures must be classed with those ot 
Liercules and Romulus. 

At length the darkness begins to break; and the country which hag 
been lost to view as Britain reappears as England. 'The conversion 
of the Saxon colonists to Christianity was the first of a long series of 
salutary revolutions. It is true that the Church had been deeply cor: 
rupted both by that superstition and by that philosophy against which 
she had long contended, and over which she had at last tiiumphed. 
She had given a too easy admission to doctrines borrowed from the 
ancient schools, and to rites borrowed from the ancient temples. Ro 
man policy and Gothic ignorance, Grecian ingenuity and Syrian 
asceticism, had contributed to deprave her. Yet she retained enough 
of the sublime theology and benevolent morality of her earlier days 
to elevate many intellects, and to purify many hearts. Some things 
also which at a later period were justly regarded as among her chief 
blemishes were, in the seventh century, and long afterwards, among 
her chief merits. That the sacerdotal order should encroach on the 
functions of the civil magistrate would, in our time, be a great evil. 
But that which in an age of good government is an evil may, in ar 
age of grossly bad government, be a blessing. It is better that man: 
kind should be governed by wise laws well administered, and by an 
enlightened public opinion, than by priestcraft: but it is better that 
men should be governed by priestcraft than by brute violence, m 
such a prelate as Dunstan than by such a warrior as Penda. 
society sunk in ignorance, and ruled by mere physical force, has great 
reason to rejoice when a class, of which the influence is intellectual 
and moral, rises to ascendency. Such a class will acubtless abuse 
its power: but mental power, even when abused, is still a nobler and 
better power than that which consists merely in corporeal strength. 
We read in our Saxon chronicles of tyrants, who, when at the height 
of greatness, were smitten with remorse, who abhorred the pleasares 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 5 


and dignities which they had purchased by guilt, who abdicated their 
_», crowns, and who sought to atone for their offences by cruel penances 
~wnd incessant prayers. These stories have drawn forth bitter expres- 
sions of contempt from some writers who, while they boasted of 
liberality, were in truth as narrow-minded as any monk of the dark 
ages, and whose habit was to apply to all events in the history 
of the world the standard received in the Parisian society of the 
eighteenth century. Yet surely a system which, however deformed 
by superstition, introduced strong moral restraints into communities 
previously governed only by vigour of muscle and by audacity of 
spirit, a system which taught the fiercest and mightiest ruler that 
he was, like his meanest bondman, a responsible being, might have 
seemed to deserve a more respectful mention from philosophers and 
philanthropists. 

The same observations willapply to the contempt with which, in the 
last century, it was fashionable to speak of the pilgrimages, the sanc- 
tuaries, the crusades and the monastic institutions of the middle ages, 
In times when men were scarcely ever induced to travel by liberal 
curiosity, or by the pursuit of gain, it was better that the rude inhabi- 
tant of the North should visit Italy and the East as a pilgrim, than 
that he should never see anything but those squalid cabins and un- 
cleared woods amidst which he was born. In times when life and 
when female honour were exposed to daily risk from tyrants and 
marauders, it was better that the precinct of a shrine should be re- 
garded with an irrational awe, than that there should be no refuge 
inaccessible to cruelty and licentiousness. In times when statesmen 
were incapable of forming extensive political combinations, it was 
better that the Christian nations should be roused and united for the 
recovery of the Holy Sepulchre, than that they should, one by one, 
be overwhelmed by the Mahometan power. Whatever reproach 
may, at alater period. have been justly thrown on the indolence and 
luxury of religious orders, it was surely good that, in an age of ‘igno- 
rance and violence, there should be quiet cloisters and gardens, in which 
the arts of peace could be safty cultivated, in which gentle and con- 
templative natures could find an asylum, in which one brother could 
employ himself in transcribing the Aineid of Virgil, and another in 
meditating the Analytics of Aristotle, in which he who had a genius 
for art might illuminate a martyrology’or carve a crucifix, and in 
which he who had a turn for natural philosophy might make experi- 
ments on the properties of plants and minerals. Had not such 
retreats been scattered here and there, among the huts of a miserable 
peasantry, and the castles of a ferocious aristocracy, European society 
would have consisted inerely of beasts of burden and beasts of pray. 
The Church has many times been compared by divines to the ark of 
which we read in the Book of Genesis: but never was the resemblance 
more perfect than during that evil time when she alone rode, amidst 
darkness and tempest, on the deluge beneath which all the great 


6 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


works of ancient power and wisdom lay entombed, bearing within 
her that feeble germ from which a second and more glorious civilisa- 
tion was to spring. 

Even the spiritual supremacy arrogated by the Pope was, in the 
dark ages, produtive of far more good than evil. Its effect was to 
unite the nations of Western Europe in one great commonwealth. 
What the Olympian chariot course and the Pythian oracle were to all 
the Greek cities, from Trebizond to Marseilles, Rome and her Bishop 
were to all Christians of the Latin communion, from Calabria to the 
Hebrides. Thus grew up sentiments of enlarged benevolence, Races 
separated from each other by seas and mountains acknowledged a 
fraternal tie and a common code of public law. Even in war, the 
cruelty of the conqueror was not seldom mitigated by the recollection 
that he and his vanquished enemies were all members of one great 
federation. 

Into this federation our Saxon ancestors were now admitted. A 
regular communication was opened between our shores and that part 
of Europe in which the traces of ancient power and policy were yet ~ 
discernible. Many noble monuments which have since been destroy- 
ed or defaced still retain their pristine magnificence; and travellers, 
to whom Livy and Sallust were unintelligible, might gain from the 
Roman aqueducts and temples some faint notion of Roman history. 
The dome of Agrippa, still glittering with bronze, the mausoleum 
of Adrain, not yet deprived of its columns and statues, the Flavian 
amphitheatre, not yet degraded into a quarry, told to the rude Eng- 
lish pilgrims some part of the story of that great civilised world which 
had passed away. ‘The islanders returned, with awe deeply impress- 
ed on their half opened minds, and told the wondering inhabitants 
of the hovelsof London and York that, near the grave of Saint Peter, 
a mighty race, now extinct, had piled up buildings which would 
never be dissolved till the judgment day. Learning followed in the 
train of Christianity. The poetry and eloquence of the Augustan age 
was assiduously studied in Mercian and Northumbrian monasteries. 
The names of Bede and Alcuin were justly celebrated throughout 
Europe. Such was the state of our country when, in the ninth 
century, began the last great migration of the northern barbarians. 

During many years Denmark and Scandinavia continued to pour 
forth innumerable pirates, distinguished by strength, by valour, by 
merciless ferocity, and by hatred of the Christian name. No country 
suffered so much from these invaders as England. Her coast lay 
near to the ports whence they sailed; nor was any shire so far distant — 
from the sea as to be secure from attack. The same atrocities which 
had attended the victory of the Saxon over the Celt were now, after 
the lapse of ages, suffered by the Saxon at the hand of the Dane. 

Yivilization, just as it began to rise, was met by this blow, and sank 
down once more. Large colonies of adventurers from the Baltic 
established themselves on the eastern shores of our island, spread 


Seo Pg 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. | 7 


gradually westward, and, supported by constant reinforcements from 
beyond the sea, aspired to the dominion of the whole realm. The 
struggle between the two fierce Teutonic breeds lasted through six 
generations. Each was alternately paramount. Cruel massacres 
followed by cruel retribution, provinces wasted, convents plundered, 
and cities rased to the ground, made up the greater part of the his- 
tory of those evil days. At length the North ceased to send forth 
a constant stream of fresh depredators; and from that time the mu- 
tual aversion of the races began to subside. Intermarriage became 
frequent. The Danes learned the religion of the Saxons; and thus 
one cause of deadly animosity was removed. The Danish and Saxon 
tongues, both dialects of one widespread language, were blended to- 
gether. But the distinction between the two nations was by no 
- means effaced, when an event took place which prostrated both, in 
common slavery and degradation, at the feet of a third people. 

The Normans were then the foremost race of Christendom. Their 
valour and ferocity had made them conspicuous among the rovers 
whom Scandinavia had sent forth to ravage Western Europe. Their 
sails were long the terror of both coasts of the Channel. Their arms 
were repeatedly. carried far into the heart of the Carlovingian empire, 
and were victorious under the walls of Maestricht and Paris. At 
length one of the feeble heirs of Charlemagne ceded to the strangers 
a fertile province, watered by a noble river, and contiguous to the 
sea which was their favourite element. In that province they found- 
ed a mighty state, which graduatiy extended its influence over the 
neighbouring principalities of Britanny and Maine. Without laying 
aside that dauntless valour which had been the terror of every land 
from the Elbe to the Pyrenees, the Normans rapidly acquired all, 
and more than all, the knowledge and refinement which they found 
in the country where they settled. Their courage secured their terri- 
tory against foreign invasion. They established internal order, such 
as had long been unknown in the Frank empire. They embraced 
Christianity; and with Christianity they learned a great part of what 
the clergy had to teach. They abandoned their native speech, and 
adopted the French tongue, in which the Latin was the predominant 
element. They speedily raised their new language to a dignity and 
importance which it had never before possessed. They found it a 
barbarous jargon; they fixed it in writing; and they employed it in 
legislation, in poetry, and in romance. They renounced that brutal 
intemperance to which all the other branches of the great German 
family were too much inclined. The polite luxury of the Norman 
* presented a striking contrast to the coarse voracity and drunkenness 
of his Saxon and Danish neighbours. He loved to display his 
magnificence, not in huge piles of food and hogsheads of strong 
drink, but in large and stately edifices, rich armour, gallant horses, 
choice falcons, well ordered tournaments, banquets delicate rather 
than abundant, and wines remarkable rather for their exquisite 


at HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


flavour than for their intoxicating power. That chivalrous spirit, 
which has exercised so powerful an influence on the politics, morals, 
and manners of all the European nations, was found in the highest 
exaltation among the Norman nobles. Those nobles were dis- 
tinguished by their graceful bearing and insinuating address. They 
were distinguished also by their skill in negotiation, and by a natural 
eloquence which they assiduously cultivated. It was the boast of 
one of their historians that the Norman gentlemen were orators 
from the cradle. But their chief fame was derived from their 
military exploits. Every country, from the Atlantic Ocean to the 
Dead Sea, witnessed the prodigies of their discipline and valour: 
One Norman knight, at the head of a handful of warriors, scattered _ 
the Celts of Connaught. Another founded the monarchy of the Two 
Sicilies, and saw the emperors both of the East and of the West fly 
before his arms. A third, the Ulysses of the first crusade, was in- 
vested by his fellow soldiers with the sovereignty of Antioch; and a 
fourth, the Tancred whose name lives in the great poem of Tasso, 
was celebrated through Christendom as the bravest and most gener- 
ous of the deliverers of the Holy Sepulchre 

The vicinity of so remarkable a people early began to produce an 
effect on the public mind of England. Before the Conquest, English 
princes received their education in Normandy. English sees and 
English estates were bestowed on Normans. The French of Nor- 
mandy was familiarly spoken in the palace of Westminster. The 
court of Rouen seems to have been to the court of Edward the Con: 
fessor what the court of Versailles long afterwards was to the court 
of Charles the Second. 

The battle of Hastings, and the events which followed it, not only 
placed a Duke of Normandy on the English throne, but gave up the 
whole population of England to the tyranny of the Norman race. 
The subjugation of a nation by a nation has seldom, even in Asia, 
been more complete. The country was portioned out among the 
captains of the invaders. Strong military institutions, closely con- 
nected with the institution of property, enabled the foreign conquer-_ 
ors to oppress the children of the soil. A cruel penal code, cruelly 
enforced, guarded the privileges, and even the sports, of the alien 
tyrants. Yet the subject race, though beaten down and trodden un-_ 
der foot, still made its sting felt. Some bold men, the favourite ~ 
heroes of our oldest ballads, betook themselves to the woods, and 
there, in defiance of curfew laws and forest laws, waged a predatory 
war against their oppressors. Assassination was an event of daily 
occurrence. Many Normans suddenly disappeared leaving no trace. 
The corpses of many were found bearing the marks of violence. 
Death by torture was denounced against the murderers, and strict 
search was made for them, but generally in vain; for the whole- 
nation was in a conspiracy to screen them. It was at length thought . 
necessary to lay a heavy fine on every Hundred in which a person of 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 9 


French extraction should be found slain; and this regulation was 
followed up by another regulation, providing that every person who 
was found slain should be supposed to be a Frenchman, unless he 
was proved be a Saxon. 

During the century and a half which followed the Conquest, there 
is, to speak strictly,.no English history. The French Kings of Eng- 
land rose, indeed, to an eminence which was the wonder and dread 
of all neighbouring nations. They conquered Ireland. They received 
the homage of Scotland. By their valour, by their policy, by their 
fortunate matrimonial alliances, they became far more popular on the 
Continent than their liege lords the Kings of France. Asia, as well 
as Europe, was dazzled by the power and glory of our tyrants. 
Arabian chroniclers recorded with unwilling admiration the fall of 
Acre, the defence of Joppa, and the victorious march to Ascalon; 
and Arabian mothers long awed their infants to silence with the name 
of the lionhearted Plantagenet. At one time it seemed that the line 
of Hugh Capet was about to end as the Merovingian and Carlovingian 
lines had ended, and that a single great monarchy would spread from 
the Orkneys to the Pyrenees. So strong an association is established 
in most minds between the greatness of a sovereign and the greatness 
of the nation which he rules, that almost every historian of England 
has expatiated with a sentiment of exultation on the power and 
splendour of her foreign masters, and has lamented the decay of that 
power and splendour as a calamity toour country. This is, in truth, 
as absurd as it would be in a Haytian negro of our time to dwell with 
national pride on the greatness of Lewis the Fourteenth, and to speak 
of Blenheim and Ramilies with patriotic regret and shame. The 
Conqueror and his descendants to the fourth generation were not 
Englishmen: most of them were. born in France: they spent the 
greater part of their lives in France: their ordinary speech was 
French: almost every high office in their gift was filled by a French- 
man: every acquisition which they made on the Continent estranged 
them more and more from the population of our island. One of the 
ablest among them indeed attempted to win the hearts of his English 
subjects by espousing an English princess. But, by many of his 
barons, this marriage was regarded as a marriage between a white 
planter and a quadroon girl would now be regarded in Virginia. In 
history he is known by the honourable surname of Beauclerc; but, 
in his own time, his own countrymen called him by a Saxon nick- 
name, in contemptuous allusion to his Saxon connection. 

Had the Plantagenets, as at one time seemed likely, succeeded in 
uniting all France under their government, it is probable that England 
would never have had an independent existence. Her princes, her 
lords, her prelates, would have been men differing in race and 
language from the artisans and the tillers of the earth. The revenucs 
of her great proprietors would have been spent in festivities and di- 
versions on the banks of the Seine. The noble language of Milton 


10 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


and Burke would have remained a rustic dialect, without a literature, 
a fixed grammar, or a fixed orthography, and would have been con- 
temptuously abandoned to the use of boors. No man of English ex- 
traction would have risen to eminence, except by becoming in speech 
and habits a Frenchman. 

England owes her escape from such calamities to an event which 
her historians have generally represented as disastrous. Her interest 
was so directly opposed to the interests of her rulers that she had no 
hope but in their errors and misfortunes. The talents and even the 
virtues of her first six French Kings were a curse toher. ‘The follies 
and vices of the seventh were her salvation. Had John inherited the 
great qualities of his father, of Henry Beauclere, or of the Conqueror, 
nay, had he even possessed the martial courage of Stephen or of 
Richard, and had the King of France at the same time been as inca- 
pable as all the other successors of Hugh Capet had been, the House 
of Plantagenet must have risen to unrivalled ascendency in Europe. 
But, just at this conjuncture, France, for the first time since the 
death of Charlemagne, was governed by a prince of great firmness 
and ability. On the other hand England, which, since the battle of 
Hastings, had been ruled generally by wise statesmen, always by 
brave soldiers, fell under the dominion of atrifler and a coward. 
From that moment her prospects brightened. John was driven from 
Normandy. The Norman nobles were compelled to make their 
election between the island and the continent. Shut up by the sea 
with the people whom they had hitherto oppressed and despised, they 
gradually came to regard England as their country, and the English 
as their countrymen. ‘The two races, so long hostile, soon found 
that they had common interests and common enemies. Both were 
alike aggrieved by the tranny of a bad king. Both were alike in- 
dignant at the favour shown by the court to the natives of Poitou and 
Aquitaine. The greatgrandsons of those who had fought under 
William and the greatgrandsons of those who had fought under 
Harold began to draw near to each other in friendship; and the first 
pledge of their reconciliation was the Great Charter, won by their 
united exertions, and framed for their common benefit. 

Here commences the history of the English nation. The history 
of the preceding events is the history of wrongs inflicted and sus- 
tained by various tribes, which indeed all dwelt on English ground, 
but which regarded each other with aversion such as has scarcely 
ever existed between communities separated by physical barriers, 
For even the mutual animosity of countries at war with each 
other is languid when compared with the animosity of nations 
which, morally separated, are yet locally intermingled. In no coun- 
try has the enmity of race been carried farther than m England. In 
no country has that enmity been more completely effaced. The 
stages of the process by which the hostile elements were melted down 
into one homogeneous mass are not accurately known to us. But it 


4 


aa 


co 


—— ee 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 11 


is certain that, when John became King, the distinction between 


Saxons and Normans was strongly marked, and that before the end 
of the reign of his grandson it had almost disappeared. In the time 
of Richard the First, the ordinary imprecation of a Norman gentle- 
man was ‘‘May I become an Englishman!” His ordinary form of 
indignant denial was ‘‘ Do you take me for an Englishman?” The 
descendant of such a gentleman a hundred years later was proud of 
the English name. 

The sources of the noblest rivers which spread fertility over conti- 
nents, and bear richly laden fleets to the sea, are to be sought in wild 
and barren mountain tracts, incorrectly laid down in maps, and 
rarely explored by travellers. To such a tract the history of our 
country during the thirteenth century may not unaptly be compared. 
Sterile and obscure as is that portion of our annals, it is there 
that we must seek for the origin of our freedom, our prosperity, 
and our glory. Then it was that the great English people was 
formed, that the national character began to exhibit those pe- 
culiarities which it has ever since retained, and that our fathers 
became emphatically islanders, islanders not merely in geographi- 
cal position, but in their politics, their feelings, and their man- 
ners. Then first appeared with distinctness that constitution 
which has ever since, through all changes, preserved its identity; 
that constitution of which all the other free constitutions in the world 
are copies, and which, in spite of some defects, deserves to be re- 
garded as the best under which any great society has ever yet existed 
during many ages. Then it was that the House of Commons, the 
archetype of all the representative assemblies which now meet, either 
in the old or in the new world, held its first sittings. Then it was 
that the common law rose to the dignity of a science, and rapidly be- 


came a not unworthy rival of the imperial jurisprudence. Then it 


was that the courage of those sailors who manned the rude barks of 
the Cinque Ports first made the flag of England terrible on the seas. 
Then it was that the most ancient colleges which still exist at both 
the great national seats of learning were founded. Then was formed 
that language, less musical indeed that the languages of the south, 
but in force, in richness, in aptitude for all the highest purposes of 
the poet, the philosopher, and the orator, inferior to the tongue of 
Greece alone. Then too appeared the first faint dawn of that noble 
literature, the most splendid and the most durable of the many glories 
of England. 

Harly in the fourteenth century the amalgamation of the races was 
all but complete; and it was soon made manifest, by signs not to be 
mistaken, that a people inferior to none existing in the world had 
been formed by the mixture of three branches of the great Teutonic 


family with each other, and with the aboriginal Britons. There 


was, indeed, scarcely any thing in common between the England to 


~ which John had been chased by Philip Augustus, and the England 


12 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


from which the armies of Edward the Third went forth to conquer 
France. 

A period of more than a hundred years followed, during which the 
chief object of the English was to establish, by force of arms, a great 
empire on the Continent. The claim of Edward to the inheritance 
occupied by the House of Valois was a claim in which it might seem 
that his subjects were little interested. But the passion for conquest 
spread fast from the prince to the people. The war differed widely 
from the wars which the Plantagenets of the twelfth century had 
waged against the descendants of Hugh Capet. For the success of 
Henry the Second, or of Richard the First, would have made Eng- 
land a province of France. The effect of the successes of Edward 
the Third and Henry the Fifth was to make France, for a time, a 
province of England. The disdain with which, in the twelfth cen- 
tury, the conquerors from the Continent had regarded the islanders, 
was now retorted by the islanders on the people of the Continent. 
Every yeoman from Kent to Northumberland valued himself as one 
of a race born for victory and dominion, and looked down with 
scorn on the nation before which his ancestors had trembled. Even 
those knights of Gascony and Guienne who had fought gallantly 
under the Black Prince were regarded by the English as men of an 
inferior breed, and were contemptuously excluded from honourable 
and lucrative commands. In no long time our ancestors altogether 
lost sight of the original ground of quarrel. They began to consider 
the crown of France as a mere appendage to the crown of England; 
and when, in violation of the ordinary law of succession, they trans- 
ferred the crown of England to the House of Lancaster, they seem 
to have thought that the right of Richard the Second to the crown of 
France passed, as of course, to that house. The zeal and vigour which 
they displayed present a remarkable contrast to the torpor of the 
French, who were far more deeply interested in the event of the 
struggle. The most splendid victories recorded in the history of the 
middle ages were gained at this time, against great odds, by the 
English armies. Victories indeed they were of which a nation may 
justly be proud; for they are to be attributed to the moral superiority 
of the victors, a superiority which was most striking in the lowest 
ranks. The knights of England found worthy rivals in the knights 
of France. Chandos encountered an equal foe in Du Guesclin. But 
France had no infantry that dared to face the English bows and bills. 
A French King was brought prisonér to London. An English King 
was crowned at Paris. The banner of St. George was carried far 
beyond the Pyrenees and the Alps. On the south of the Ebro the 
English won a great battle, which for a time decided the fate of Leon 
and Castile; and the English Companies obtained a terrible preémi- 
nence among the bands of warriors who let out their weapons for 
hire to the princes and commonwealths of Italy. 

Nor were the arts of peace neglected by our fathers during that 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 13 


_ stirring period. While France was wasted by war, till she at length 


found in her own desolation a miserable defence against invaders, 


| _ the English gathered in their harvests, adorned their cities , pleaded, 


traded, and studied in security. Many of our noblest architectural 
monuments belong to that age. Then rose the fair chapels of New 
College and of Saint George, the nave of Winchester and the choir of 
York, the spire of Salisbury and the majestic towers of Lincoln. A 
copious and forcible language, formed by an infusion of French into 
German, was now the common property of the aristocracy and of 


the people. Nor was it long before genius began to apply that ad- 


mirable machine to worthy purposes. While English warriors, leav- 
ing behind them the devastated provinces of France, entered Val- 


-Jadolid in triumph, and spread terror.to the gates of Florence, Eng- 


lish poets depicted in vivid tints all the wide variety of human man- 
ners and fortunes, and English thinkers aspired to know, or dared to 
doubt, where bigots had been content to wonder and to believe. The 
same age which produced the Black Prince and Derby, Chandos and 
Hawkwood,-produced also Geoffrey Chaucer and John Wycliffe. 

In so splendid and imper a a manner did the English people, 
properly so called, first take place among the nations of the world, 
Yet while we contemplate with pleasure “the high and commanding 
qualities which our forefathers displayed, we cannot but admit that 
the end which they pursued was an end condemned both by humanity 
and by enlightened policy, and that the reverses which compelled 
them, after a long and bloody struggle, to relinquish the hope of 


establishing a ereat continental empire, were really blessings in the 


guise of disasters. The spirit of the French was at last aroused: they 
began to oppose a vigorous national resistance to the foreign con- 
querors; and from that time the skill of the English captains ‘and the 
courage of the English soldiers were, happily for mankind, exerted 
invain. After many desperate strugeles, and with many bitter re- 


egrets, our ancestors gave up the contest. Since that age no British 


government has ever seriously and steadily pursued the design of 
making great conquests on the Continent. The people, indeed, con- 


‘tinued to cherish with pride the recollection of Cressy, of Poitiers, 


and of Agincourt. Even after the lapse of many years it was casy 
to fire their blood and to draw forth their subsidies by promising them 
an expedition for the conquest of France. But happily the energies 
of our country have been directed to better objects; and she now 
occupies in the history of mankind a place far more glorious than if 
she had, as at one time seemed not improbable, acquired by the sword 
an ascendency similar to that which formerly belonged to the Roman 
republic. 

Cooped up once more within the limits of the island, the warlike 
peop!e employed in civil strife those arms which had been the terror 


of Europe. The means of profuse expenditure had long been drawn 


by the English barons from the oppressed provinces of France. That 


Tt ee HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


source of supply was gone: but the ostentatious and luxurious habits 
which prosperity had engendered still remained; and the great lords, 
unable to gratify their tastes by plundering the French, were eager 
to plunder each other. The realm to which they were now confined 
would not, in the phrase of Comines, the most judicious observer of 
that time, suffice for them all. Two aristocratical factions, headed 
by two branches of the royal family, engaged in a long and fierce 
struggle for supremacy. As the animosity of those factions did not 
really arise from the dispute about the succession, it lasted long after 
all ground of dispute about the succession was removed. The party 
of the Red Rose survived the last prince who claimed the crown in 
right of Henry the Fourth. The party of the White Rose survived 
the marriage of Richmond and Elizabeth. Left without chiefs who 
had any decent show of right, the adherents of Lancaster rallied round 
a line of bastards, and the adherents of York set up a succession of 
impostors. When, at length, many aspiring nobles had perished on 
tne field of battle or by the hands of the executioner, when many 
illustrious houses had disappeared forever from history, when those 
great families which remained had been exhausted and sobered by 
calamities, it was universally acknowledged that the claims of all the 
contending Plantagenets were united in the house of Tudor. 

Meanwhile a change was proceeding infinitely more momentous 
than the acquisition or loss of any province, than the rise or fall of 
any dynasty. Slavery and the evils by which slavery is everywhere 
accompanied were fast disappearing. 

It is remarkable that the two greatest and most salutary social revo- 
lutions which have taken place in England, that revolution which, in 
the thirteenth century, put an end to the tyranny of nation over 
nation, and that revolution which, a few generations later, put an end 
to the property of man in man, were silently #nd imperceptibly 
effected. They struck contemporary observers with no suprise, and 
have received from historians a very scanty measure of attention. 
They were brought about neither by legislative regulations nor by 
physicial force. Moral causes noiselessly effaced first the distinction 
between Norman and Saxon, and then the distinction between master 
and slave. None can venture to fix the precise moment at which 
either distinction ceased. Some faint traces of the old Norman feel- 
ing might perhaps have been found late in the fourteenth century. 
Some faint traces of the institution of villenage were detected by the 
curious so late as the days of the Stuarts; nor has that institution ever, 
to this hour, been abolished by statute. ( 

It would be most unjust not to acknowledge that the chief agent in 
these two great deliverances was religion; and it may perhaps be 
doubted whether a purer religion might not have been found a less 
efficient agent. The benevolent spirit of the Christian morality is 
undoubtedly adverse to distinctions of caste. But to the Church of 
Rome such distinctions are peculiarly odious; for they are incom 


Peel ees oe 
‘ s 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 15 


patible with other distinctions which are essential to her system. She 
ascribes to every priest a mysterious dignity which entitles him to 
the reverence of every Jayman; and she does not consider any man as 
disqualified, by reason of his nation or of his family, for the priest: 


-hood. Her doctrines respecting the sacerdotal character, however 


erroneous they may be, have repeatedly mitigated some of the worst 
evils which can afflict society. That superstition cannot be regarded 
as unmixediy noxious which, in regions cursed by the tyranny of 
race over race, creates an aristocracy altogether independent of race, 
inverts the relation between the oppressor and the oppressed, and 
compels the hereditary master to kneel before the spiritual tribunal 
of the hereditary bondman. ‘To this day, in some countries where 
negro slavery exists, Popery appears in advantageous contrast to 
other forms of Christianity. It is notorious that the antipathy 
between the European and African races is by no means so strong at 
Rio Janeiro as at Washington. In our own country this peculiarity 
of the Roman Catholic system produced, during the middle ages, 
many salutary effects. It is true that, shortly after the battle of Has- 
tings, Saxon prelates and abbots were violently deposed, and that 


ecclesiastical adventurers from the Continent were intruded by hun- 


dreds into lucrative benefices. Yet even then pious divines of Nor- 
man blood raised their voices against such a violation of the constitu- 
tion of the Church, refused to accept mitres from the hands of 
William, and charged him, on the peril of his soul, not to forget that 
the vanquished islanders were his fellow Christians. The first pro- 
tector whom the English found among the dominant caste was Arch- 
bishop Anselm. At atime when the English name was a reproach, 
and when all the civil and military dignities of the kingdom were 
supposed to belong exclusively to the countrymen of the Conqueror, 
the despised race learned, with transports of delight, that one of 
themselves, Nicholas Breakspear, had been elevated to the papal 
throne, and had held out his foot to be kissed by ambassadors sprung 
from the noblest houses of Normandy. It was a national as well as 
a religious feeling that drew great multitudes to the shrine of Becket, 
whom they regarded as the enemy of their enemies. Whether he was 
a Norman or a Saxon may be doubted: but there is doubt that he 
perished by Norman hands, and that the Saxons cherished his 
memory with peculiar tenderness and veneration, and, in their pop- 
ular poetry, represented him as one of their own race. A succes- 
sor of Becket was foremost among the refractory magnates who 
obtained that charter which secured the privileges both of the Nor- 
man barons and of the Saxon yeomanry. How great a part the 
Roman Catholic ecclesiastics subsequently had in the abolition of 
villenage we learn from the unexceptionable testimony of Sir Thomas 
Smith, one of the ablest Protestant counsellors of Elizabeth. When 
the dying slaveholder asked for the last sacraments, his spiritual at- 
tendants regularly adjured him, as he loved his soul, to emancipate 


Ay pre HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

his brethren for whom Christ had died. So successfully had the 

Church used her formidable machinery that, before the Reformation 
ame, She had enfranchised almost all the bondmen in the kingdom 

except her own, who, to do her justice, seem to have been very 

tenderly treated. 

There can be no doubt that, when these two great revolutions had 
been effected, our forefathers were by far the best governed people 
in Europe. During three hundred years the social system had been 
in a constant course of improvement. Under the first Plantagenets 
there had been barons able to bid defiance to the sovercign, and 
peasants degraded to the level of the swine and oxen which they 
tended. The exorbitant power of the baron had been gradually re 
duced. The condition of the peasant had been gradually elevated. 
Between the aristocracy and the working people had sprung up a 
middle class, agricultural and commercial. ‘There was still, it may 
be, more inequality than is favourable to the happiness and virtue of 
our species: but no man was altogether above the restraints of law, 
and no man was altogether below its protection. 

That the political institutions of England were, at this early period, 
regarded by the English with pride and affection, and by the most 
enlightened men of neighbouring nations with admiration and envy, 
is proved by the clearest evidence. But touching the nature of thes¢ 
institutions there has been much dishonest and acrimonicus contre- 
versy. 

The historical literature of England has indeed suffered grievously 
from a circumstance which has not a little contributed to her pros 
perity. The change, great as it is, which her polity has undergone 
during the last six centuries, has been the effect of gradual develop 
ment, not of demolition and reconstruction. The present constitu 
ion of our country is, to the constitution under which she flourished 
five hundred years ago, what the tree is to the sapling, what the 
man is to the boy. The alteration has been great. Yet there nevei 
Was a moment at which the chief part of what existed was not old 
A polity thus formed must abound in anomalies. But for the evii¢ 
arising from mere anomalies we have ample compensation. Othe 
societies possess written constitutions more symmetrical. But ne 
other society has yet succeeded in uniting revolution with prescrip 
tion, progress: with stability, the energy of youth with the majesty o° 
immemorial antiquity. 

This great blessing, however, has its drawbacks: and one of those 
drawbacks is that ever y source of information as to our early history 
has been poisoned by party spirit. As there is no country wher2 
statesmen have been so much under the influence of the past, so 
there is no country where historians have been so much under the 
influence of the pesca Between these two things, indeed, there is 
a natural connection. Where history is regarded merely as a picture 
of life and manners, or as a collection of experiments from wv hich 


ae 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 17 


general maxims of civil wisdom may be drawn, a writer lies under 
no very pressing temptation to misrepresent transactions of ancient 
date. But where history is regarded as a repository. of titledeeds, on 
which the rights of governments and nations depend, the motive to 
falsification becomes almost irresistible. A Frenchman is not now 
impelled by any strong interest either to exaggerate or to underrate 
the power of the Kings of the house of Valois. The privileges of 
the States General, of the States of Brittany, of the States of Bur- 
gundy, are to him matters of as little practical importance as the con- 
stitution of the Jewish Sanhedrim or of the Amphictyonic Council: 
The gulph of a great revolution completely separates the new from 
the old system. No such chasm divides the existence of the English 
nation into two distinct parts. Our laws and customs have never 
been lost in general and irreparable ruin. With us the precedents of 
the middle ages are still valid precedents, and are still cited, on the 
gravest occasions, by the most eminent statesmen. For example, 
when King George the Third was attacked by the malady which 
made him incapable of performing his regal functions, and when the 
most distinguished lawyers and politicians differed widely as to the 
course which ought, in such circumstances, to be pursued, the 
Houses of Parliament would not proceed to discuss any plan of re- 
gency till all the precedents which were to be found in our annals, 
from the earliest times, had been collected and arranged. Commit- 
tees were appointed to examine the ancient records of the realm. 
The first case reported was that of the year 1217: much importance 
was attached to the cases of 13826, of 1877, and of 1422: but the case 
which was justly considered as most in point was that of 1455. Thus 
in our country the dearest interests of parties have frequently been 
staked on the results of the researches of antiquaries. The inevitable 
consequence was that our antiquaries conducted their researches in 
the spirit of partisans. 

It is therefore not Surprising that those who have written concern- 
ing the limits of prerogative and liberty in the old polity of Eng- 
land should generally have shown the temper, not of judges, but of 
angry and uncandid advocates. For they were discussing, not a 
speculative matter, but a matter which had a direct and practical 
connection with the most momentous and-exciting disputes of their 
own day. From the commencement of the long contest between the 
Parliament and the Stuarts down to the time when the pretensions 
of the Stuarts ceased to be formidable, few questions were practically 
more important than the question whether the administration of that 
family had or had not been in accordance with the ancient constitu- 
tion of the kingdom. This question could be decided only by refer- 
ence to the records of preceding reigns. Bracton and Fleta, the 
Mirror of Justice and the Rolls of Parliament, were ransacked to 
find pretexts for the excesses of the Star Chamber on one side, and 
of the High Court of Justice on the other. During a long course of 


18 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


years every Whig historian was anxious to prove that the old Eng- 
lish government was all but republican, every Tory historian to 
prove that it was ali but despotic. 

With such feelings, both parties looked into the chronicles of the 
middle ages. Both readily found what they sought; and both ob- 
stinately refused to see anything but what they sought. The cham- 
pions of the Stuarts could easily point out instances of oppression 
exercised on the subject. The defenders of the Roundheads could 
as easily produce instances of determined and successful resistance 
offered to the Crown. The Tories quoted, from ancient writings, 
expressions almost as servile as were heard from the pulpit of Main- 
waring. The Whigs discovered expressions as bold and severe as 
any that resounded from the judgment seat of Bradshaw. One set 
of writers adduced numerous instances in which Kings had extorted 
money without the authority of Parliament. Another set cited cases 
in which the Parliament had assumed to itself the power of inflicting 
punishment on Kings. Those who saw only one half of the evi- 
dence would have concluded that the Plantagenets were as absolute 
as the Sultans of Turkey: those who saw only the other half would 
have concluded that the Plantagenets had as little real power as the 
Doges of Venice; and both conclusions would have been equally re- 
mote from the truth. 

The old English government was one of a class of limited mon- — 
archies which sprang up in Western Europe during the middle ages, 
and which, notwithstanding many diversities, bore to one another a 
strong family likeness. That there should have been such a likeness 
is not strange. The countries in which those monarchies arose had 
been provinces of the same great civilised empire, and had been 
overrun and conquered, about the same time, by tribes of the same rude 
and warlike nation. They were members of the same great coalition 
against Islam. They were in communion with the same superb and 
ambitious Church. Their polity naturally took the same form. 
They had institutions derived partly from imperial Rome, partly 
from papal Rome, partly from the old Germany. All had Kings; 
and in all the kingly office became by degrees strictly hereditary. 
All had nobles bearing titles which had originally indicated military 
rank. The dignity of knighthood, the rules of heraldry, were com- 
mon to all. All had richly endowed ecclesiastical establishments, 
municipal corporations enjoying large franchises, and senates whose 
consent was necessary to the validity of some public acts. 

Of these kindred constitutions the English was, from an early 
period, justly reputed the best. The prerogatives of the sovereign 
were undoubtedly extensive. The spirit of religion and the spirit of 
chivalry concurred to exalt his dignity. The sacred oil had been 
poured on his head. It was no disparagement to the bravest and 
noblest knights to kneel at his feet. His person was inviolable. He - 
alone was entitled to convoke the Estates of the realm: he could at 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 19 


his pleasure dismiss them; and his assent was necessary to all their 
legislative acts. He was the chief of the executive administration, 
the sole organ of communication with foreign powers, the captain of 
the military and naval forces of the state, the fountain of justice, 
of mercy, and of honour. He had large powers for the regulation 
of trade. It was by him that money was coined, that weights and 
measures were fixed, that marts and havens were appointed. His 
ecclesiastical patronage was immense. His hereditary revenues, 
economically administered, sufficed to meet the ordinary charges of 
government. His own domains were of vast extent. He was also 
feudal lord paramount of the whole soil of his kingdom, and, in that 
capacity, possessed many lucrative and many formidable rights, 
which enabled him to annoy and depress those who thwarted him, 
and to enrich and aggrandize, without any cost to himself, those who 
enjoyed his favour. 

But his power, though ample, was limited by three great consti- 
tutional principles, so ancient that none can say when they began 
to exist, so potent that their natural development, continued through 
many generations, has produced the order of things under which we 
now live. 

First, the King could not legislate without the consent of his Par- 
liament. Secondly, he could impose no tax without the consent of 
his Parliament. ‘Thirdly, he was bound to conduct the executive 
administration according to the laws of the land, and, if he broke 
those laws, his advisers and his agents were responsible. 

No candid Tory will deny that these principles had, five hundred 
years ago, acquired the authority of fundamental rules. On the 
- other hand, no candid Whig will affirm that they were, till a later 
period, cleared from all ambiguity, or followed out to all their conse- 
quences. A constitution of the middle ages was not, like a constitu- 
tion of the eighteeneth or nineteenth century, created entire by a 
single act, and fully set forth in a single document. It is only in a 
refined and speculative age that a polity is constructed on system. 
In rude societies the progress of government resembles the progress 
of language and of versification. Rude societies have language, and 
often copious and energetic language: but they have no scientific 
grammar, no definitions of nouns and verbs, no names for declen- 
sions, moods, tenses, and voices. Rude societies have versification, 
and often versification of great power and sweetness: but they have 
no metrical canons; and the minstrel whose numbers, regulated 
solely by his ear, are the delight of his audience, would himself be 
unable to say of how many dactyls and trochees each of his lines 
consists. As eloquence exists before syntax, and song before pros- 
ody, so government may exist in a high degree of excellence long 
before the limits of legislative, executive, and judicial power have 
been traced with precision. 

It was thus in our country. The line which bounded the royal 


20 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


prerogative, though in general sufficiently clear, had not everywhere 
been drawn with accuracy and distinctness. There was, therefore, 
near the border some debatable ground on which incursions and re- 
prisals continued to take place, till, after ages of strife, plain and 
durable landmarks were at length set up. lt may be instructive to 
note in what way, and to what extent, our ancient sovereigns were 
in the habit of violating the three great principles by which the lib- 
erties of the nation were protected. 

No English King has ever laid claim to the general legislative 
power. The most violent and imperious Plantagenet never fancied 
himself competent to enact, without the consent of his great council, 
that a jury should consist of ten persons instead of twelve, that a 
widow’s dower should be a fourth part instead of a third, that per- 
jury should be a felony, or that the custom of gavelkind should be 
introduced into Yorkshire.* But the King had the power of par- 
doning offenders; and there is one point at which the power of 
par doning and the power of legislating seem to fade into each other, 
and may easily, at least in a simple age, be confounded. A penal 
statute is virtually annulled if the penalties which it imposes are reg- 
ularly remitted as often as they are incurred. ‘The sovereign was 
undoubtedly competent to remit penalties without limit. He was 
therefore competent to annul virtually a penal statute. It might 
seem that there could be no serious objection to his doing formally 
what he might do virtually. Thus, with the help of subtle and 


courtly lawyers, grew up, on the doubtful frontier which separates — 


executive from legislative functions, that great anomaly known as 
the dispensing power. 

That the King could not impose taxes without the consent of Par- 
liament is admitted to have been, from time immemorial, a funda- 
mental law of England. It was among the articles which John was 
compelled by the Barons to sign. Edward the First ventured to 
break through the rule: but, able, powerful, and popular as he was, 
he encountered an opposition to which he found it expedient to 
yield. He covenanted accordingly in express terms, for himself and 
his heirs, that they would never again levy any aid without the as- 
sent and goodwill of the Estates of the realm. His powerful and 
victorious grandson attempted to violate this solemn compact: but 
the attempt was strenuously withstood. At length the Plantagenets 
gave up the. point in despair: but, though they ceased to infringe 
the law openly, they occasionally contrived, by evading it, to pro- 
cure an extraordinary supply for a temporary purpose. They were 
interdicted from taxing; but they claimed the right of begging and 
borrowing. They therefore sometimes begged in a tone not easily 
to be distinguished from that of command, and sometimes borrowed 


Fae a ee A ee rn Se EN ee ee ee ee 


*This is excellently put by Mr, Hallam in the first chapter of his Constitn- 
tional History. 


SOT one ee 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. | 21 


with small thought of repaying. But the fact that they thought it 
necessary to disguise their exactions under the names of benevolences 
and loans sufficiently proves that the authority of the great constitu- 
tional rule was universally recognised. 

The principle that the King of England was bound to conduct the 
administration according to law, and that, if he did anything against 
law, his advisers and agents were answerable, was established at a 
very early period, as the severe judgments pronounced and executed 
on many royal favourites sufficiently prove. It is, however, certain 
that the rights of individuals were often violated by the Plantagenet, 
and that the injured parties were often unable to obtain redress. 
According to law no Englishman could be arrested or detained in 
confinement merely by the mandate of the sovereign. In fact, per- 
sons obnoxious to the government were frequently imprisoned 
without any other authority than a royal order. According to law, 
torture, the disgrace of the Roman jurisprudence, could not, in any 
circumstances, be inflicted on an English subject. Nevertheless, 
during the troubles of the fifteenth centur y, a rack was introduced 
into the Tower, and was occasionally used under the plea of political 
necessity. But it would be a great error to infer from such irregu- 
Jarities that the English monarchs were, either in theory or in 
practice, absolute. We live in a highly civilised society, through 
which intelligence is so rapidly diffused by means of the press and 
of the post office that any gross act of oppression committed in any 
part of our island is, in a few hours, discussed by millions, If the 
sovereign were now to immure a subject in defiance of the writ of 
Habeas. Corpus, or to put a conspirator to the torture, the whole 
nation would be instantly electrified by the news. In the middle 
ages the state of society was widely different. Rarely and with 
great difficulty did the wrongs of individuals come to the knowledge 
of the public. A man might be illegally confined during many 
months n the castle of Carlisle or Norw ich; and no whisper of the 
transacuon might reach London. It is highly probable that the rack 

had been many years in use before the great majority of the nation 
had the least suspicion that it was ever employed. Nor were our 


ancestors by any means so much alive as we are to the importance of 


maintaining great general rules. We have been taught by long ex- 
perience that we cannot without danger suffer any breach of the 
constitution to pass unnoticed. It is therefore now universally held 
that a government which unnecessarily exceeds its powers ought to 
be visited with severe parliamentary censure, and that a gover nment 
which, under the pressure of a great exigency, and with pure inten- 
tions, has exceeded its powers, ought without delay to apply to 
Parliament for an act of indemnity. But such were not the feelings 
of the Englishmen of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. They 
were little disposed to contend for a principle merely as a principle, 
or to cry out against an irregularity which was not also felt to be a 


22 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


grievance. As long as the general spirit of the administration was 
mild and popular, they were willing to allow some latitude to their 
sovereign. If, for ends generally acknowledged to be good, he ex- 
erted a vigour beyond the law, they not only forgave, but applauded 
him, and while they enjoyed security and prosperity under his rule, 
were but too ready to believe that whoever had incurred his dis- 
pleasure had deserved it. But to this indulgence there was a limit; 
nor was that King wise who presumed far on the forbearance of the 
English people. They might sometimes allow him to overstep the 
constitutional line: but they also claimed the privilege of overstep- 
ping that line themselves, whenever his encroachments were so 
serious as to excite alarm. If, not content with occasionally oppress- 
ing individuals, he dared to oppress great masses, his subjects 
promptly appealed to the laws, and, that appeal failing, appealed as 
promptly to the God of battles. 

Our forefathers might indeed safely tolerate a king ina few ex- 
cesses; for they had in reserve a check which soon brought the 
fiercest and proudest king to reason, the check of physical force. It 
is difficult for an Englishman of the nineteenth century to imagine 
to himself the facility and rapidity with which, four hundred years 
ago, this cheek was applied. The people have long unlearned the 
use of arms. The art of war has been carried to a perfection un- 
known to former ages; and the knowledge of that art is confined to 
a particular class. A hundred thousand soldiers, well disciplined 
and commanded, will keep down ten millions of ploughmen and ar- 
tisans. A few regiments of household troops are sufficient to over- 
awe all the discontented spirits of a large capital. In the meantime 
the effect of the constant progress of wealth has been to make insur 
rection far more terrible to thinking men than maladministration. 
Immense sums have been expended on works which, if a rebellion 


broke out, might perish in a few hours. The mass of movable - 


wealth collected in the shops and warehouses of London alone ex 
ceeds five hundredfold that which the whole island contained in the 
days of the Plantagenets; and, if the government were subverted by 
physical force, all this movable wealth would be exposed to immi‘ 
nent risk of spoliation and destruction. Still greater would be the 
risk to public credit, on which thousands of families directly depend 
for subsistence, and with which the credit of the whole commercial 
world is inseparably connected. It is no exaggeration to say that a 
civil war of a week on English ground would now produce <lisasters 
which would be felt from the Hoangho to the Missouri, and of which 
the traces would be discernible at the distance of a century. In such 
a state of society resistance must be regarded as a cure more des- 
perate than almost any malady which can afflict the state. In the 
middle ages, on the contrary, resistance was an ordinary remedy for 


political distempers, a remedy which was always at hand, and- 


which, though doubtless sharp at the moment, produced no deep or 


2 
ate 


‘ 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 23 


lasting ill effects. Ifa popular chief raised his standard in a popular 
cause, an irregular army could be assembled in a day. Regular 
army there was none. Every man had a slight tincture of soldier- 
ship, and scarcely any man more than aslight tincture. The national 
wealth consisted chiefly in flocks and herds, in the harvest of the 
year, and in the simple buildings inhabited by the people. All the 
furniture, the stock of shops, the machinery which could be found 
in the realm was of less value than the property which some single 
parishes now contain. Manufactures were rude; credit was almost 
unknown. Society, therefore, recovered from the shock as soon as 
the actual conflict was over. ‘The calamities of civil war were con- 
fined to the slaughter on the field of battle, and to a few subsequent 
executions and confiscations. In a week the peasant was driving his 
team and the esquire flying his hawks over the field of Towton or of 
Bosworth, as if no extraordinary event had interrupted the regular 
course of human life. 

More than a hundred and sixty years have now elapsed since the 
English people have by force subverted a government. During the 
hundred and sixty years which preceded the union of the Roses, nine 
Kings reigned in England. Six of these nine Kings were deposed. 
Five lost their lives as well as their crowns. It is evident, therefore, 
that any comparison between our ancient and our modern polity must 
lead to most erroneous conclusions, unless large allowance be made 
for the effect of that restraint which resistance and the fear of resist- 
ance constantly imposed on the Plantagenets. As our ancestors had 
against tyranny a most important security which we want, they might 
safely dispense with some securities to which we justly attach the 
highest importance. As we cannot, without the risk of evils from 
which the imagination recoils, employ physical force as a check on 
misgovernment, it is evidently our wisdom to keep all the consti- 
tutional checks on misgovernment in the highest state of efficiency, to 
watch with jealousy the first beginnings of encroachment, and never 
to suffer irregularities, even when harmless in themselves, to pass un- 
challenged, lest they acquire the force of precedents. Four hundred 
years ago such minute vigilance might well seem unnecessary. A 
nation of hardy archers and spearmen might, with small risk to its 
liberties, connive at some illegal acts on the part of a prince whose 
general administration was good, and whose throne was not defended 
by a single company of regular soldiers. 
~ Under this system, rude as it may appear when compared with those 


- elaborate constitutions of which the last seventy years have been fruit- 


ful, the English long enjoyed a large measure of freedom and happi- 
ness. Though, during the feeble reign of Henry the Sixth, the state 
was torn, first by factions, and at length by civil war; though Edward 
the Fourth was a prince of dissolute and imperious character; though 
Richard the Third has generally been represented as a monster of de- 
pravity; though the exactions of Henry the Seventh caused great 


24 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


repining,; it is certain that our ancestors, under those Kings, were far 
better governed than the Belgians under Philip, surnamed the Good, 
or the French under that Lewis who was styled the Father of his 
people. Even while the wars of the Roses were actually raging, our 
country appears to have been in a happier condition than the neigh- 
bouring realms during years of profound peace. Comines was one of 
the most enlightened statesmen of his time. He had seen all the rich- 
est and most highly civilised parts of the Continent. He had lived in 
the opulent towns of Flanders, the Manchesters and Liverpoois of the 
fifteenth century. He had visited Florence, recently adorned by the 
magnificence of Lorenzo, and Venice, not yet humbled by the Con- 
federates of Cambray. This eminent man deliberately pronounced 
England to be the best governed country of which he had any knowl 
edge. Her constitution he emphatically designated as a just and holy 
thing, which, while it protected the people, really strengthened the 
hands of a prince who respected it. In no other country were men 
so effectually secured from wrong. The calamities produced by our 
intestine wars seemed to him to be confined to the nobles and the 
fighting men, and to leave no traces such as he had been accustomed 
to see elsewhere, no ruined dwellings, no depopulated cities. 

It was not only by the inefficiency of the restraints imposed on the 
royal prerogative that England was advantageously distinguished from 
most of the neighbouring countries. A peculiarity equally important, 
though less noticed, was the relation in which the nobility steod here 
to the commonalty. There was a strong hereditary aristocracy: but 
it was of all hereditary aristocracies the least insolent and exclusive. 
It had none of the invidious character of a caste. It was constantly 
receiving members from the people, and constantly sending down 
members to mingle with the people. Any gentleman might become 
a peer. The younger son of a peer was but a gentleman. Grandsons 
of peers yielded precedence to newly made knights. The dignity of 
knighthood was not beyond the reach of any man who could by dili- 
gence and thrift realise a good estate, or who could attract notice by 
his valour in a battle or a siege. It was regarded as no disparagement 
for the daughter of a Duke, nay of a royal Duke, to espouse a distin: 
guished commoner. Thus, Sir Jofin Howard married the daughter 
of Thomas Mowbray Duke of Norfolk. Sir Richard Pole married 
the Countess of Salisbury, daughter of George Duke of Clarence. 
Good blood was indeed held in high respect: but between good blood 
and the privileges of peerage there was, most fortunately for our~- 
country, no necessary connection. Pedigrees as long, and scutch- 
eons as old, were to be found out of the House of Lords as in it. 
There were new men who bore the highest titles. There were un- 
titled men well known to be descended from knights who had broken 
the Saxon ranks at Hastings, and scaled the walls of Jerusalem. 
There were Bohuns, Mowbrays, De Veres, nay, kinsmen of the House 
of Plantagenet, with no higher addition than that of Esquire, and 


\ 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. os 


with no civil privileges beyond those enjoyed by every farmer and 
shopkeeper. There was therefore here no line like that which in some 
other countries divided the patrician from the plebeian. The yeoman 
Was not inclined to murmur at dignities to which his own children 
might rise. The grandee was not inclined to insult a class into which 


his own children must descend. 


' 


xg 


After the wars of York and Lancaster, the links which connected 
the nobility and commonalty became closer and more numerous than 
ever. The extent of destruction which had fallen on the old aristoc- 
racy may be inferred from a single circumstance. In the year 1451 
Henry the Sixth summoned fifty-three temporal Lords to parliament. 
The temporal Lords summoned by Henry the Seventh to the parlia- 
ment of 1485 were only twenty-nine, and of these several had recently 
been elevated to the peerage. During the following century the ranks 
of the nobility were largely recruited from among the gentry. The 
constitution of the House of Commons tended greatly to promote the 
salutary intermixture of classes. The knight of the shire was the con- 
necting link between the baron and the shopkeeper. On the same 
benches on which sate the goldsmiths, drapers, and grocers, who had 
been returned to parliament by the commercial towns, sate also mem- 
bers who, in any other country, would have been called noblemen, 
hereditary lords of manors, entitled to hold courts and to bear coat 
armour, and able to trace back an honourable descent through many 
generations. Some of them were younger sons and brothers of lords. 
Others could boast of even royal blood. At length the eldest son of 
an Earl of Bedford, called in courtesy by the second title of his father, 
offered himself as candidate for a seat in the House of Commons, and 
his example was followed by others. Seated in that house, the heirs 
of the great peers naturally became as zealous for its privileges as any 
of the humble burgesses with whom they were mingled. Thus our 
democracy was, from an early period, the most aristocratic, and our 
aristocracy the most democratic in the world; a peculiarity which has 
lasted down to the present day, and which has produced many im- 
portant moral and political effects. 

The government of Henry the Seventh, of his son, and of his grand- 
children was, on the whole, more arbitrary than that of the Plantag- 
enets, Personal character may in some degree explain the differ- 
ence; for courage and force of will were common to all the men and 
women of the House of Tudor. They exercised their power during 

a period of a hundred and twenty years, always with vigour, often 
with violence, sometimes with cruelty. They, in imitation of the 
dynasty which had preceded them, occasionally invaded the rights of 

the subject, occasionally exacted taxes under the name of loans and 
gifts, and occasionally dispensed with penal statutes: nay, though 
they never presumed to enact any permanent law by their own au- 
thority, they occasionally took upon themselves, when Parliament 
Was not sitting, to meet temporary exigencies by temporary edicts, 


26 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


It was, however, impossible for the Tudors to carry oppression be- 
yond acertain point: for they had no armed force, and they were 
surrounded by an armed people. Their palace was guarded by a few 
domestics, whom the array ofa single shire, or of a single ward of 
London, could with ease have overpowered. These haughty princes 
were therefore under a restraint stronger than any that mere law can 
impose, under a restraint which did not, indeed, prevent them from 
sometimes treating an individual in an arbitrary and even in a bar- 
barous manner, but which effectualiy secured the nation against gen- 
eral and long continued oppression. ‘They might safely be tyrants, 
within the precinct of the court: but it was necessary for them to 
watch with constant anxiety the temper of the country. Henry the 
Eighth, for example, encountered no opposition when he wished to 
send Buckingham and Surrey, Anne Poleyn and Lady Salisbury, to 
the scaffold. But when, without the consent of Parliament, he de- 
manded of his subjects a contribution amounting to one sixth of their 
goods, he soon found it necessary to retract. .The cry of hundreds 
of thousands was that they were English and not French, freemen 
and not slaves. In Kent the royal commissioners fled for their lives. 
In Suffolk four thousand men appeared in arms. The King’s lieuten- 
ants in that country vainly exerted themselves to raise an army. 
Those who did not join in the insurrection declared that they wouid 
not fight against their brethren in such a quarrel. Henry, proud and 
selfwilled as he was, shrank, not without reason, from a conflict with 
the roused spirit of the nation. He had before his eyes the fate of 
his predecessors who had perished at Berkeley and Pomfret. He not 
only cancelled his illegal commissions; he not only granted a general 
pardon to ali the malecontents; but he publicly and solemnly apolo- 
gised for his infraction of the laws. 

His conduct, on this occasion, well illustrates the whole policy of 
his house. The temper of the princes of that line was hot, and their 
spirits high, but they understood the character of the nation that they 
governed, and never once, like some of their predecessors, and some 
of their successors, carried obstinacy to a fatal point. The discretion 
of the Tudors was such, that their power, though it was often resist- 
ed, was never subverted. The reign of every one of them was dis- 
turbed by formidable discontents: but the government was always 
able either to soothe the mutineers or to conquer and punish them. 
Sometimes, by timely concessions, it succeeded in averting civil hos- 
tilities; but in general it stood firm, and called for heip on the nation. 
The nation obeyed the call, rallied round the sovereign, and enabled 
him to quell the disaffected minority. 

Thus, from the age of Henry the Third to the age of Elizabeth, 
England grew and flourished under a polity which contained the germ 
of our present institutions, and which, though not very exactly de- 
fined, or very exactly observed, was yet effectually prevented from 
degenerating into despotism, by the awe in which the governors stood 
of the spirit and strength of the governed. 


Mone 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 27 


But such a polity is suited only to a particular stage in the progress 
of society. ‘The same causes which produce a division of labour in 
the peaceful arts must at length make war a distinct science and a 
distinct trade. A time arrives when the use of arms begins to occupy 
the entire attention of a separate class. It soon appears that peas- 
ants and burghers, however brave, are unable to stand their ground 
against veteran soldiers, whose whole life is a preparation for the day 
of battle, whose nerves have been braced by long familiarity with 
danger, and whose movements have all the precision of clockwork. 
It is found that the defence of nations can no longer be safely en- 
trusted to warriors taken from the plough or the loom for a campaign 
of forty days. If any state formsa great regular army, the border- 
ing states must imitate the example, or must submit toa foreign yoke. 
But, where a great regular army exists, limited monarchy, such as it 
was in the middle ages, can exist no longer, The sovereign is at once 
emancipated from what had been the chief restraint on his power; 
and he inevitably becomes absolute, unless he is subjected to checks 
such as would be superfluous in a society where all are soldiers occa- 
sionally, and none permanently. 

With the danger came also the means of escape. In the monarchies 
of the middle ages the power of the sword belonged to the prince; 
but the power of the purse belonged to the nation; and the progress 
of civilisation, as it made the sword of the prince more and more 
formidable to the nation, made the purse of the nation more and more 
necessary to the prince. His hereditary revenues would no longer 
suffice, even for the expenses of civil government. It was utterly 
impossible that, without a regular and extensive system of taxation, 
he could keep in constant efliciency a great body of disciplined troops. 
The policy which the parliamentary ‘assemblies of Europe ought to 
have adopted was to take their stand firmly on their coustitutional 
right to give or withhold money, and resolutely to refuse funds for 


the support of armies, till ample securities had been provided against 


despotism. 
This wise policy was followed in our country alone. In the neigh- 


, bouring kingdoms great military establishments were formed; no new 


safeguards for public liberty were devised; and the consequence was, 
that the old parliamentary institutions everywhere ceased to exist. 


In France, where they had always been feeble, they languished, and 


at length died of mere weakness. In Spain, where they had been as 


strong as in any part of Europe, they struggled fiercely for life, but 


' struggled too Jate. The mechanics of Toledo and Valladolid vainly 


defended the privileges of the Castilian Cortes against the veteran 
battalions of Charles the Fifth. As vainly, in the next generation, 
did the citizens of Saragossa stand up against Philip the Second, for 
the old constitution of Aragon. One after another, the great national 
councils of the continental monarchies, councils once scarcely less 
proud and powerful than those which sate at Westminster, sank inte 


28 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. , 


utter insignificance. If they-met, they met merely as our Convoca- 
tion now meets, to go through some venerable forms. 

In England events took a different course. This singular felicity 
she owed chiefly to her insular situation. Before the end of the 
fifteenth century great military establishments were indispensable to 
the dignity, and even to the safety, of the French and Castilian mon- 
archies. If either of those two powers had disarmed, it would soon 
have been compelled to submit to the dictation of the other. But 
England, protected by the sea against invasion, and rarely engaged 
in warlike operations on the Continent, was not, as yet, under the 
necessity of employing regular troops. The sixteenth century, the 
seventeeth century, found her still without a standing army. At the 
commencement of the seventeenth century political science had made 
considerable progress. The fate of the Spanish Cortes and of the 
French States General had given solemn warning to our Parliaments; 
and our Parliaments, fully aware of the nature and magnitude of the 
danger, adopted, in good time, a system of tactics which, after a con- 
test protracted through three generations, was at length successful. 

Almost every writer who has treated of that contest has been de- 
sirous to show that his own party was the party which was struggling 
to preserve the old constitution unaltered. The truth however is that 
the old constitution could not be preserved unaltered. <A law, beyond 
the control of human wisdom, had decreed that there should no lon- 
ger be governments of that peculiar class which, in the fourteenth 
and fifteenth centuries, had been common throughout Europe. The 
question, therefore, was not whether our policy should undergo a 
change, but what the nature of the change should be. The introduc- 
tion of anew and mighty force had disturbed the old equilibrium, 
and had turned one limited monarchy after another into an absolute 
monarchy. What had happened elsewhere would assuredly have 
happened here, unless the balance had been redressed by a great 
transfer of power from the crown to the parliament. Our princes 
were about to have at their command means of coercion such as no 
Plantagenet or Tudor had ever possessed. They must imevitably 
have become despots, unless they had been, at the same time, placed 
under restraints to which no Plantagenet or Tudor had ever been 
subject. 

It seems certain, therefore, that, had none but political causes been — 
at work, the seventeenth century would not have passed away \with- 
out a fierce conflict between our Kings and their Parliaments. But 
other causes of perhaps greater potency contributed to produce the 
same effect. While the government of the Tudors was in its highest 
vigour an event took place which has coloured the destinies of all 
Christian nations, and in an especial manner the destinies of England. 
Twice during the middle ages the mind of Europe had risen up 
against the domination of Rome. The first insurrection broke out in 
the south of France. The energy of Innocent the Third, the zeal of 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. ©, | 26 


she young orders of Francis and Dominic, and the ferocity of the 
Crusaders whom the priesthood let loose on an unwarlike population, 
crushed the Albigensian churches. The second reformation had its 
origin in England, and spread to Bohemia. The Council of Con- 
stance, by removing some ecclesiastical disorders which had given 
scandal to Christendom, and the princes of Europe, by unsparingly 
using fire and sword against the hereties, succeeded in arresting and 
turning back the movement. Nor is thismuch tobe lamented. The 
sympathies of a Protestant, it is true, will naturally be on the side of 
the Albigensians and of the Lollards. Yet an enlightened and temper- 
ate Protestant will perhaps be disposed to doubt whether the success, 
either of the Albigensians or of the Lollards, would, on the whole, 
have promoted the happiness and virtue of mankind. Corrupt as the 
Church of Rome was, there is reason to believe that, if that Church 
had been overthrown in the twelfth or even in the fourteenth century, 
the vacant space would have been occupied by some system more 
corrupt still. ‘There was then, through the greater part of Europe, 
very little knowledge; and that little was confined tothe clergy. Not 
one man in five hundred could have spelled his way through a psalm. 
Books were few and costly. The art of printing was unknown. 
Copies of the Bible, inferior in beauty and clearness to those which 
every cottager may now command, sold for prices which many 
priests could not afford to give. It was obviously impossible that 
the laity should search the Scriptures for themselves. It is probable 
therefore, that, as soon as they had put off one spiritual yoke, they 
would have put on another, and that the power lately exercised by the 
clergy of the Church of Rome would have passed to afar worse class 
of teachers. The sixteenth century was comparatively a time of light. 
Yet even in the sixteenth century a considerable number of those 
who quitted the old religion followed the first confident and_plausi- 
ble guide who offered himself, and were soon led into errors far more 
serious than those which they had renounced. Thus Matthias and 
Kniperdoling, apostles of lust, robbery, and murder, were able for a 
time to rule great cities. In a darker age such false prophets might 
have founded empires; and Christianity might have been distorted 
into a cruel and licentious superstition, more noxious, not only than 
-Popery, but even than Islamism. 

About a hundred years after the rising of the Council of Constance, 
that great change emphatically called the Reformation began. The 
fulness of time was now come. ‘The clergy were no longer the sole 
or the chief depositories of knowledge. ‘The invention of printing 
had furnished the assailants of the Church with a mighty weapon 
which had been wanting to their predecessors, The study of the 
ancient writers, the rapid development of the powers of the modern 
languages, the unprecedented activity which was displayed in every 
department of literature, the political state of Europe, the vices of 
the Roman court, the exactions of the Roman chancery, the jealousy 

M. E. 1.—2 


80 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


with which the wealth and privileges of the clergy were naturally 
regarded by laymen, the jealousy with which the Italian ascendency 
was naturally regarded by men: born on our side of the Alps, all these 
things gave to the teachers of the new theology an advantage which 
they perfectly understood how to use. 
Those who hold that the influence of the Church of Rome in the 
dark ages was, on the whole, beneficial to mankind, may yet with 
erfect consistency regard the Reformation as an inestimable blessing. 
he leading strings, which preserve and uphold the infant, would 
impede the fullgrown man. And so the very means by which the 
human mind is, in one stage of its progress, supported and pro- 
pelled, may, in another stage, be mere hindrances. There is a season 
in the life both of an individual and of a society, at which submission 
and faith, such as at a later. period would be justly called servility 
and credulity, are useful qualities. The child who teachably and 
undoubtingly listens to the instructions of his elders is likely to im- 
prove rapidly. But the man who should receive with childlike do- 
cility every assertion and dogma uttered by another man no wiser 
than himself would become contemptible. It is the same with com- 
munities. The childhood of the European nations was passed under 
the tutelage of the clergy. The ascendency of the sacerdotal order 
was long the ascendency which naturally and properly belongs to 
intellectual superiority. The priests, with all their faults, were by 
far the wisest portion of society. It was, therefore, on the whole, 
good that they should be respected and obeyed. ‘The encroachments 
of the ecclesiastical power on the province of the civil power pro- 
duced much more happiness than misery, while the ecclesiastical 
power was in the hands of the only class that had studied history, 
philosophy, and public law, and while the civil power was in the 
hands of savage chiefs, who could not read their own grants and 
edicts. But a change took place. Knowledge gradually spread 
among laymen. At the commencement of the sixteenth century 
many of them were in every intellectual attainment fully equal to the 
most enlightened of their spiritual pastors. Thenceforward that 
dominion, which, during the dark ages, had been, in spite of many 
abuses, a legitimate and salutary guardianship, became an unjust and 
noxious tyranny. 
From the time when the barbarians overran the Western Empire to 
the time of the revival of letters, the influence of the Church of Rome 
had been generally favourable to science, to civilisation, and to good 
government. But, during the last three centuries, to stunt the growth 
of the human mind has been her chief object. Throughout Christen- 
dom, whatever advance has been made in knowledge, in freedom, in 
wealth, and in the arts of life, has been made in spite of her, and 
has everywhere been in inverse proportion to her power. The loveli- 
est and most fertile provinces of Europe have, under her rule, been 
sunk in poverty, in political servitude, and in intellectual torpor, 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 31 


while Protestant countries, once proverbial for sterility and barba- 
rism, have been turned by skill and industry into gardens, and can 
boast of a long list of heroes and statesmen, philosophers and poets. 
Whoever, knowing what Italy and Scotland naturally are, and what, 
four hundred years ago, they actually were, shall now’compare the 
country round Rome with the country round Edinburgh, will be able 
to form some judgment as to the tendency of Papal domination. 
The descent of Spain, once the first among monarchies, to the lowest 
depths of degradation, the elevation of Holland, in spite of many 
natural disadvantages, to a position such as no commonwealth so 
small has ever reached, teach the same lesson. Whoever passes in 
Germany from a Roman Catholic to a Protestant principality, in 
Switzerland from a Roman Catholic toa Protestant canton, in Ireland 
from a Roman Catholic to a Protestant county, finds that he has passed 
from a lower to a higher grade of civilisation. On the other side of 
the Atlantic the same law prevails. The Protestants of the United 
States have left far behind them the Roman Catholics of Mexico, 
Peru, and Brazil. The Roman Catholics of Lower Canada remain 
inert, while the whole continent round them is in a ferment with 
Protestant activity and enterprise. The French have doubtless shown 
an energy and an intelligence which, even when misdirected, have 
justly entitled them to be called a great people.- But this apparent 
exception, when examined, will be found to confirm the rule; for in 
no country that is called Roman Catholic, has the Roman Catholic 
Church, during several generations, possessed so little authority as in 
France. The literature of France is justly held in high esteem 
throughout the world. Butif we deduct from that literature all that 
belongs to four parties which have been, on different grounds, in 
rebellion against the Papal domination, all that belongs to the Protes- 
tants, all that belongs to the assertors of the Gallican liberties, all that 
belongs to the Jansenists, and all that belongs to the philosophers, 
how much will be left? : 

It is difficult to say whether England owes more to the Roman 
Catholic religion or to the Reformation. For the amalgamation of 
races and for the abolition of villenage, she is chiefly indebted to the 
influence which the priesthood in the middle ages exercised over the 
laity. For political and intellectual freedom, and for all the blessings 
which political and intellectual freedom have brought in their train, 
she is chiefly indebted to the great rebellion of the laity against the 
priesthood. 

The struggle between the old and the new theology in our country 
was long, and the event sometimes seemed doubtful. There were 
two extreme parties, prepared to act with violence or to suffer with 
stubborn resolution. Between them lay, during a considerable time, 
a middle party, which blended, very illogically, but by no means un- 
naturally, lessons learned in the nursery with the sermons of the 
modern evangelists, and, while clinging with fondness to all obsery- 


32 ... HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


ances, yet detested abuses with which those observances were closely 
connected. Men in such a frame of mind were willing to obey, 
almost with thankfulness, the dictation of an able ruler who spared 
them the trouble of judging for themselves, and, raising a firm and 
commanding voice above the uproar of controversy, told them how 
to worship and what to believe. It is not strange, therefore, that 
the Tudors should have been able to exercise a great influence 
on ecclesiastical affairs; nor is it strange that their influence should, 
for the most part, have been exercised with a view to their own in- 
terest. 

Henry the Eighth attempted to constitute an Anglican Church dif- 
fering from the Roman Catholic Church on the point of the suprem- 
acy, and on that point alone. His success in this attempt was ex- 
traordinary. The force of his character, the singularly favourable 
situation in which he stood with respect to foreign powers, the im- 
mense wealth which the spoliation of the abbeys placed at his disposal, 
and the support of that class which still halted between two opinions, 
enabled him to bid defiance to both the extreme parties, to burn as 
heretics those who avowed the tenets of the Reformers, and to hang 
as traitors those who owned the authority of the Pope. But Henry’s 
system died with him. Had his life been prolonged, he would have 
found it difficult to maintain a position assailed with equal fury by 
all who were zealous either for the new or for the old opinions. The 
ministers who held the royal prerogatives in trust for his infant son 
' could not venture to persist in so hazardous a policy; nor could Eliza- 
beth venture to return toit. It was necessary to make a choice. The 

overnment must either submit to Rome, or must obtain the aid of the 

rotestants. The government and the Protestants had only one thing 
in common, hatred of the Papal power. The English Reformers were 
eager to go as far as their brethren on the Continent. They unani- 
mously condemned as Antichristian numerous dogmas and practices 
vo which Henry had stubbornly adhered, and which Elizabeth reluc- 
tantly abandoned. Many felt a strong repugnance even to things 
indifferent which had formed part of the polity or ritual of the mys- 
tical Babylon. Thus Bishop Hooper, who died manfully at 
Gloucester for his religion, long refused to wear the episcopal vest- 
ments. Bishop Ridley, a martyr of still greater renown, pulled down 
the ancient altars of his diocese, and ordered the Eucharist to be ad- 
ministered in the middle of churches, at tables which the Papists ir- 
reverently termed oyster boards. Bishop Jewel pronounced the 
clerical garb to be a stage dress, a fool’s coat, a relique of the Amo- 
rites, and promised that he would spare no labour to extirpate such 
degrading absurdities. Archbishop Grindal long hesitated about ac- 
cepting a mitre from dislike of what he regarded as the mummery of 
consecration. Bishop Parkhurst uttered a fervent prayer that the 
Church of England would propose to herself the Church of Zurich as 
the absolute pattern of a Christian community. Bishop Ponet was of © 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. : 33 


opinion that the word Bishop should be abandoned to the Papists, and 
that the chief officers of the purified church should be called Super- 
intendents. When it is considered that none of these prelates be- 
lenged to the extreme section of the Protestant party, it cannot be 
doubted that, if the general sense of that party had been followed, 
the work of reform would have been carried ou as unsparingly in 
England as in Scotland. 

But, as the government needed the support of the Protestants, so 
the Protestants needed the protection of the government. Much 
was therefore given up on both sides: an union was effected; and the 
fruit of that union was the Church of England. 

To the peculiarities of this great institution, and to the strong 
passions which it has called forth in the minds both of friends and of 
enemies, are to be attributed many of the most important events 

‘which have, since the Reformation, taken place in our country; nor 
can the secular history of England be at all understood by us, unless 
we study it in constant connection with the history of her ‘ecclesi- 
astical poiity. 

The man who took the chief part in settling the conditions of the 
alliance which produced the Anglican Church was Archbishop 
Cranmer. He was the representative of both the parties which, at 
that time, needed each other’s assistance. He was at once a divine 
and a courtier. In his character of divine he was perfectly ready to 
go as far in the way of change as any Swiss or Scottish Reformer. 
in his character of courtier he was desirous to preserve that organi- 
sation which had, during many ages, admirably served the purposes 
of the Bishops of Rome, and might be expected now to serve equally 
well the purposes of the English Kings and of their ministers. His 
temper and his understanding eminently fitted him to act asmediator. 
Saintly in his professions, unscrupulous in his dealings, zealous for 
nothing, bold in speculation, a coward and a timeserver in action, a 
placable enemy and a lukewarm friend, he was inevery way qualified 
to arrange the terms of the coalition between the religious and the 
worldly enemies of Popery. 

To this day the constitution, the doctrines, and the services of the 
Church, retain the visible marks of the compromise from which she 
sprang. She occupies a middle position between the Churches of 
Rome and Geneva. Her doctrinal confessions and discourses, com- 
posed by Protestants, set forth principles of theology in which Calvin 
or Knox would have found scarcely a word to disapprove. Her 
prayers and thanksgivings, derived from the ancient Breviaries, are 
very generally such that Cardinal Fisher or Cardinal Pole might have 

heartily joined in them. A controversialist who puts an Arminian 
sense on her Articles and Homilies will be pronounced by candid 
men to be as unreasonable as a controversialist who denies that the 
doctrine of baptismal regeneration can be discovered in her Liturgy. 

The Church of Rome held that episcopacy was of divine insti 


34 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


tution, and that certain supernatural graces of a high order had 
been transmitted by the imposition of hands through fifty generations, 
from the Eleven who received their commission on the Galilean 
mount, to the bishops who met at. Trent. A large body of Protes- 
tants, on the other hand, regarded prelacy as positively unlawful, and 
persuaded themselves that they found a very different form of 
ecclesiastical government prescribed in Scripture. The founders of 
the Anglican Church took a middle course. They retained episco- 
pacy; but they did not declare it to be an institution essential to the 
welfare of a Christian society, or to the efficacy of the sacraments. 
Cranmer, indeed, on one important occasion, plainly avowed his 
conviction that, in the primitive times, there was no distinction be- 
tween bishops and priests, and that the laying on of hands was 
altogether superfluous. 

Among the Presbyterians the conduct of public worship is, to a 
great extent, left to the minister. Their prayers, therefore, are not 
exactly the same in any two assemblies on the same day, or on any two 
days in the same assembly. In one parish they are fervent, eloquent, 
and full of meaning. In the next parish they may be languid or 
absurd. The priests of the Roman Catholic Church, on the other 
hand, have, during many generations, daily chaunted the same 
ancient confessions, supplications, and thanksgivings, in India and 
Lithuania, in Ireland and Peru. The service, being in a dead language, 
is intelligible only to the learned; and the great majority of the con- 
gregation may be said to assist as spectators rather than as auditors. 
Here, again, the Church of England took a middle course. She 
copied the Roman Catholic forms of prayer, but translated them into 
the vulgar tongue, and invited the illiterate multitude to join its _ 
voice to that of the minister. 

Inevery part of her system the same policy may be traced. Utterly 
rejecting the doctrine of transubstantiation, and condemning as 
idolatrous all adoration paid to the sacramental bread and wine, she 
yet, to the disgust of the Puritan, required her children to receive 
the memorials of divine love, meekly kneeling upon their knees. 
Discarding many rich vestments which surrounded the altars of the 
ancient faith, she yet retained, to the horror of weak minds, a robe 
of white linen, typical of the purity which belonged to her as the 
mystical spouse of Christ. Discarding a crowd of pantomimic 
gestures which, in the Roman Catholic worship, are substituted for 
intelligible words, she yet shocked many rigid Protestants by marking 
the infant just sprinkled from the font with the sign of the cross, 
The Roman Catholic addressed his prayers to a multitude of Saints, 
among whom were numbered many men of doubtful, and some of 
hateful, character. The Puritan refused the addition of Saint even 
to the apostle of the Gentiles, and to the disciple whom Jesus loved. 
The Church of England, though she asked for the intercession of no 
created being, still set apart days for the commemoration of some who 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 30 


had done and suffered great things for thefaith. She retained confir- 
mation and ordination as edifying rites; but she degraded them from 
the rank of sacraments. Shrift was no part of her system. Yet she 
gently invited the dying penitent to confess his sins to a divine, and 
empowered her ministers to soothe the departing soul by an absolution 
which breathes the very spirit of the old religion. In generalit may 
be said that she appeals more to the understanding, and less to the 
senses and the imagination, than the Church of Rome, and that she 
appeals less to the understanding, and more to the senses and imagi- 
nation, than the Protestant Churches of Scotland, France, and 
Switzerland. 

Nothing, however, so strongly distinguished the Church of England 
from other Churches as the relation in which she stood to the mon- 
archy. The King was her head. The limits of the authority which 
he possessed, as such, were not traced, and indeed have never yet 
been traced with precision. 'Thelaws which declared him supreme in 
ecclesiastical matters were drawn rudely and in general terms. If, 
for the purpose of ascertaining the sense of those laws, we examine 
the books and lives of those who founded the English Church, our 
perplexity will be increased. For the founders of the English Church 
wrote and acted in an age of violent intellectual fermentation, and of 
constant action and reaction. They therefore often contradicted each 
other, and sometimes contradicted themselves. That the King was, 
under Christ, sole head of the Church, was a doctrine which they all 
with one voice affirmed: but those words had very different signifi- 
cations in different mouths, and in the same mouth at different con- 
junctures. Sometimes an authority which would have satisfied 

ildebrand was ascribed to the sovereign: then it dwindled down to 
an authority little more than that which had been claimed by many 
ancient English princes who had been in constant communion with 
the Church of Rome. What Henry and his favourite counsellors 
meant, at one time, by the supremacy, was certainly nothing less than 
the whole power of the keys. The King was to be the Pope of his 
kingdom, the vicar of God, the expositor of Catholic verity, the 
channel of sacramental graces. He arrogated to himself the right of 
deciding dogmatically what was orthodox doctrine and what was 
heresy, of drawing up and imposing confessions of faith, and of giving 
religious instruction to his people. He proclaimed that all jurisdiction, 
Spiritual as well as temporal, was derived from him alone, and that 
it was in his power to confer episcopal authority, and to take it away. 
He actually ordered his seal to be put to commissions by which 
bishops were appointed, who were to exercise their functions as his 
deputies, and during his pleasure. According to this system, as 
expounded by Cranmer, the King was the spiritual as well as the 
temporal chief of the nation. In both capacities His Highness must 
have lieutenants. As he appointed civil officers to keep his seal, to 
collect his revenues, and to dispense justice in his name, so he 


36 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


appointed divines of various ranks to preach the gospel, and to 
administer the sacraments. It was unneccssary that there should 
be any imposition of hands, The King,—such was the opinion of 
Cranmer given in the plainest words,—might, in virtue of authority 
derived from God, make a priest; and the priest so made needed no 
ordination whatever. 'These opinions the Archbishop, in spite of the 
opposition of less courtly divines, followed out to every legitimate 
consequence. He held that his own spiritual functions, like the 
secular functions of the Chancellor and Treasurer, were at once deter- 
mined by a demise of the crown. When Henry died, therefore, the 
Primate and his suffragans took out fresh commissions, empowering 
them to ordain and to govern the Church till the new sovereign should 
think fit to order otherwise. When it was objected that a power to 
bind and to loose, altogether distinct from temporal power, had been 
given by our Lord to his apostles, some theologians of this school 
replied that the power to bind and to loose had descended, not to the 
clergy, but to the whole body of Christian men, and ought to be 
exercised by the chief magistrate‘as the representative of the society. 
When it was objected that Saint Paul had spoken of certain persons 
whom the Holy Ghost had made overseers and shepherds of the 
faithful, it was answered that King Henry was the very overseer, 
the very shepherd, whom the Holy Ghost had appointed, and to whom 
the expressions of Saint Paul applied.* 

These high pretensions gave scandal to Protestants as well as to 
Catholics; and the scandal was greatly increased when the suprem- 
acy, Which Mary had resigned back to the Pope, was again anni xed 
to the crown, on the accession of Elizabeth. It seemed monstrous 
that a woman should be the chief bishop of a Church in which an 
apostle had forbidden her even to let her voice be heard. The Queen, 
therefore, found it necessary expressly to disclaim that sacerdotal 
character which her father had assumed, and which, according to 
Cranmer, had been inseparably joined, by divine ordinance, to the 
regal function. When the Anglican confession of faith was revised 
in her reign, the supremacy was explained in a manner somewhat 
different from that which had been fashionable at the court of 
Henry. Cranmer had declared, in emphatic terms, that God had 
immediately committed to Christian princes the whole cure of all 
their subjects, as well concerning the administration of God’s word 
for the cure of souls, as concerning the administration of things 
political.t The thirty-seventh article of religion, framed under 
Elizabeth, declares, in terms as emphatic, that the ministering of 
God’s word does not belong to princes. The Queen, however, still 


* See a very curious paper which Strype believed to bein Gardiner’s hand- 
writing. Ecclesiastical Memorials, Book I.. Chap. xvii. 

+ These are Cranmer’s own words. See the Appendix to Burnet’s History of 
the Reformation, Part I. Book Ill. No. 21, Question 9. f 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 37 


had over the Church a visatorial power of vast and undefined extent. 
She was entrusted by Parliament with the office of restraining and 
punishing heresy and every sort of ecclesiastical abuse, and was 
permitted to delegate her authority to commissioners. The Bishops 
were little more than her ministers. Rather than grant to the civil 
magistrate the absolute power of nominating spiritual pastors, the 
Church of Rome, in the eleventh century, set all Europe on fire. 
Rather than grant to the civil magistrate the absolute power of nom- 
inating spiritual pastors, the ministers of the Church of Scotland, in 
our time, resigned their livings by hundreds. The Church of England 
had no such scruples. By the royal authority alone her prelates were 
appointed. By the royal authority alone her Convocations were sum- 
moned, regulated, prorogued, and dissolved. Without the royal sanc- 
tion her canons had no force. One of the articles of her faith was that 
without the royal consent no ecclesiastical council could Jawfully as- 
semble. From all her judicatures an appeal lay, in the last resort, to 
the sovereign, even when the question was whether an opinion ought to 
be accounted heretical, or whether the administration of a sacrament 
had been valid. Nor did the Church grudge this extensive power to 
our princes. By them she had been called into existence, nursed 
through a feeble infancy, guarded from Papists on one side and from 
Puritans on the other, protected w#gainst Parliaments which bore her 
no good will, and avenged on literary assailants whom she found it 
hard to answer. Thus gratitude, hope, fear, common attachments, 
common enmities, bound her to the throne. All her traditions, all 
her tastes, were monarchical. Loyalty became a point of professional 
honour among her clergy, the peculiar badge which distinguished 
them at once from Calvinists and from Papists. Both the Calvin sts 
and the Papists, widely as they differed in other respects, regarded 
with extreme jealousy all encroachments of the temporal power on 
the domain of the spiritual power. Both Calvinists and Papists 
maintained that subjects might justifiably draw the sword against 
ungodly rulers. In France Calvinists resisted Charles the Ninth: 
Papists resisted Henry the Fourth: both Papists and Calvinists re- 
sisted Henry the Third. In Scotland Calvinists led Mary captive. 
On the north of the Trent Papists took arms against the English 
throne. The Church of England meantime condemned both Cal- 
vinists and Papists, and loudly boasted that no duty was more con- 
stantly or earnestly inculcated by her than that of submission to 
_ princes. 

The advantages which the crown derived from this close alliance 
with the Established Church were great; but they were not without 
serious drawbacks. The compromise arranged by Cranmer had 
from the first been considered by a large body of Protestants as a 
scheme fer serving two masters, as an attempt to unite the worship 
of the Lord with the worship of Baal. In the days of Edward the 
Sixth the scruples of this party had repeatedly thrown great difficul- 


38 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


ties in the way of the government. When Elizabeth came to the - 
throne, those difficulties were much increased. Violence naturally 
engenders violence. The spirit of Protestantism was therefore far 
fiercer and more intolerant after the cruelties of Mary than before 
them. Many persons who were warmly attached to the new opinions 
had, during the evil days, taken refuge in Switzerland and Germany. 
They had been hospitably received by their brethren in the faith, 
had sate at the feet of the great doctors of Strasburg, Zurich, an¢ 
Geneva, and had been, during some years, accustomed to a more 
simple worship, and to a more democratical form of church govern: 
ment, than England had yet seen. ‘These men returned to thei 
country convinced that the reform which had been effected under 
King Edward had been far less searching and extensive than the in- 
terests of pure religion required. But it was in vain that they at- 
tempted to obtain any concession from Elizabeth. Indeed her 
system, wherever it differed from her brother’s, seemed to, them to 
differ for the worse. ‘They were little disposed to submit, in matters 
of faith, to any human authority. They had recently, in reliance of 
their own interpretation of Scripture, risen up against a Church 
strong in immemorial antiquity and catholic consent. It was by no 
common exertion of intellectual energy that they had thrown off the 
yoke of that gorgeous and imperial superstition; and it was vain to 
expect that, immediately after such an emancipation, they would — 
patiently submit to a new spiritual tyranny. Long accustomed, 
when the priest lifted up the host, to bow down with their faces to 
the earth, as before a present God, they had learned to treat the mass 
as an idolatrous mummery. Long accustomed to regard the Pope as 
the successor of the chief of the apostles, as the bearer of the keys of 
earth, and heaven, they had learned to regard him as the Beast, the 
Antichrist, the Man of Sin.. It was not to be expected that they ~ 
would immediately transfer to an upstart authority the homage which 
they had withdrawn from the Vatican; that they would submit their 
private judgment to the authority of a Church founded on private ~ 
judgment alone; that they would be afraid to dissent from teachers 
who themselves dissented from what had lately been the universal 
faith of western Christendom. It is easy to conceive the indignation 
which must have been felt by bold and inquisitive spirits, glorying 
in newly acquired freedom, when an institution younger by many 
years than themselves, an institution which had, under their own 
eyes, gradually received its form from the passions and interests of a 
court, began to mimic the lofty style of Rome. 

Since these men could not be convinced, it was determined that 
they should be persecuted. Persecution produced its natural effect 
on them. It found them a sect: it made them a faction. To their 
hatred of the Church was now added hatred of the Crown. The two 
sentiments were intermingled; and each embittered the other. The 
opinions of the Puritan concerning the relation of ruler and subject 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 39 


were widely different from those which were inculcated in the Homi 

lies. His favourite divines had, both by precept and by example, 
encouraged resistance to tyrants and persecutors. His fellow Cal- 
vinists in France, in Holland, and in Scotland, were in arms against 
idolatrous and cruel princes. His notions, too, respecting the gov- 
ernment of the state took a tinge from his notions respecting the gov- 
ernment of the Church. Some of the sarcasms which were popularly 
thrown on episcopacy might, without much difficulty, be turned 
against royalty; and many of the argnments which were used to 
prove that spiritual power was best lodged in a synod seemed to lead 
to the conclusion that temporal power was best lodged in a parlia- 
ment. - 

Thus, as the priest of the Established Church was, from interest, 
from principle, and from passion, zealous for the royal prerogatives, 
the Puritan was, from interest, from principle, and from passion, 
hostile to.them. The power of the discontented sectaries was great. 
They were found in every rank: but they were strongest among the 
mercantile classes in the towns, and among the small proprietors in 
the country. Early in the reign of Elizabeth they began to return a 
majority of the House of Commons. And doubtless, had our ances- 
tors been then. at liberty to fix their attention entirely on domestic 
questions, the strife between the Crown and the Parliament would 
instantly have commenced. But that was no reason for internal dis- 
sensions. It might, indeed, well be doubted whether the firmest union 
among all the orders of the state could avert the common danger by 
which all were threatened. Roman Catholic Europe and reformed 
Europe were struggling for death or life. France divided against 
‘herself, had, for a time, ceased to be of any account in Christendom. 
The English Government was at the head of the Protestant interest, 
and, while persecuting Presbyterians at home, extended a powerful 
protection to Presbyterian Churches abroad. At the head of the op- 
posite party was the mightiest prince of the age, a prince who ruled 
Spain, Portugal, Italy, the East and the West Indies, whose armies 
repeatedly marched to Paris, and whose fleets kept the coasts of Dev- 
onshire and Sussex in alarm. It long seemed probable that English- 
men would have to fight desperately on English ground for their 
religion and independence. Nor were they ever for a moment free 
from apprehensions of some great treason at home. For in that age 
it had become a point of conscience and of honour with many 
men of generous natures to sacrifice their country to their religion. 
A succession of dark plots, formed by Roman Catholics against the 
life of the Queen and the existence of the nation, kept society in 
constant alarm. Whatever might be the faults of Elizabeth, it was 
plain that, to speak humanly, the fate of the realm and of all re- 
formed Churches was staked on the security of her person and on 
the success of her administration. To strengthen her hands was, 

therefore, the first duty of a patriot and a Protestant; and that duty 


40 HISTORY OF- ENGLAND. 


was well performed. The Puritans, even in the depths of the prisons 
to which she had sent them, prayed, and with no simulated fervour, 
that she might be kept from the dagger of the assassin, that rebellion 
might be put down under her feet, and that her arms might be vic- 
torious by sea and land. One of the most stubborn of the stubborn 
sect, immediately after his hand had been lopped off for an offence 
into which he had been hurried by his intemperate zeal, waved his 
hat with the hand which was still left him, and shouted ‘‘God save 
the Queen!” The sentiment with which these men regarded her has 
descended to their posterity. ‘The Nonconformists, rigorously as she 
treated them, have, as a body, always venerated her memory.* 

During the greater part of her reign, therefore, the Puritans in the’ 
House of Commons, though sometimes mutinous, felt no disposition 
to array themselves in systematic opposition to the government, 
But, when the defeat of the Armada, the successful resistance of the 
United Provinces to the Spanish power, the firm establishment of 
Henry the Fourth on the throne of France, and the death of Philip 
the Second, had secured the State and the Church against all danger 
from abroad, an obstinate struggle, destined to last during several 
generations, instantly began at home. 

It was in the Parliament of 1601 that the opposition which had, 
during forty years, been silently gathering and husbanding strength, 
fought its first great battle and won its first great victory. ‘The 
ground was well chosen. The English Sovereigns had always been 
entrusted with the supreme direction of commercial police. It was 
their undoubted prerogative to regulate coin, weights, and measures, 
and to appoint fairs, markets, and ports. The line which bounded 
their authority over trade had, as usual, been but loosely drawn. 
They therefore, as usual, encroached on the province which right- 
fully belonged to the legislature. The encroachment was, as usual, 
patiently borne, till it became serious. But at length the Queen took 
upon herself to grant patents of monopoly by scores. ‘There was 
scarcely a family in the realm which did not feel itself aggrieved 
by the oppression and extortion which this abuse naturally caused.” 
Tron, oil, vinegar, coal. saltpetre, lead, starch, yarn, skins, leather, 
glass, could be bought only at exorbitant prices. The House of 
Commons met in an angry mood. It was in vain that a courtly 
minority blamed the Speaker for suffering the acts of the Queen’s 
Highness to be called in question. The language of the discontented 


ee 


—— ———ne mes 


* The Puritan historian, Neal, after censuring the cruelty with which she 
treated the sect to which he belonged, concludes thus: ‘‘ However, notwithstand 
ing all these blemishes, Queen Elizabeth stands upon record as a wise ana pol- 
itic princess, for delivering her kingdom from the difficulties in which if was 
involved at her accession, for preserving the Protestant reformation against the 
potent attempts of the Pope, the Emperor, and King of Spain abroad, and the 
Queen of Scots and her Popish subjects at home. .. She was the glory of the 
age in which she lived and will be the admiration of posterity ’.—History of 
the Puritans, Part I. Chap. viii. j 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 41 


party was high and menacing,.and was echoed by the voice of the 
whole nation. The coach of the chief minister of the crown was 
surrounded by an indignant populace, who cursed the monopolies, 
and exclaimed that the prerogative should not be suffered to touch 
the old liberties of England. There seemed for a moment to be some 
danger that the long and glorious reign of Elizabeth would have a 
shameful and disastrous end. She, however, with admirable judg- 
ment and temper, declined the contest, put herself at the head of the 
reforming party, redressed the grievance, thanked the Commons, in 
touching and dignified language, for their tender care of the general 
weal, brought back to herself the hearts of the people, and left to her 
‘successors a memorable example of the way in which it behoves a 
ruler to deal with public movements which he has not the means of 
resisting. 
In the year 1603 the great Queen died. That year is, on many 
accounts, one of the most important epochs in our history. It was 
then that both Scotland and Ireland became parts of the same empire 
with England. Both Scotland and Ireland, indeed, had been subju- 
gated by the Plantagenets; but neither country had been patient 
under the yoke. Scotland had, with heroic energy, vindicated her 
independence, had, from the time of Robert Bruce, been a separate 
kingdom, and was now joined to the southern part of the island in a 
Manner which rather gratified than wounded her national pride. 
Ireland had never, since the days of Henry the Second, been able to 
expel the foreign invaders; but she had struggled against them long 
and fiercely. During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the 
English power in that islafid was constantly declining, and in the 
days of Henry the Seventh, sank to the lowest point. The Irish 
dominions of that prince consisted only of the counties of Dublin and 
Louth, of some parts of Meath and Kildare, and of a few seaports 
scattered along the coast. <A large portion even of Leinster was not 
yet divided into counties, Munster, Ulster, and Connaught were 
tuled by petty sovereigns, partly Celts, and partly degenerate Nor- 
mans, who had forgotten their origin and had adopted the Celtic 
language and manners. But during the sixteenth century, the Ing- 
lish power had made great progress. The half savage chieftains who 
reigned beyond the pale had submitted one after another to the lieu- 
tenants of the Tudors. At length, a few weeks before the death of 
Elizabeth, the conquest, which had been begun more than four 
hundred years before by Strongbow, was completed by Mountjoy. 
Scarcely had James the First mounted the English throne when the 
Jast O’Donnel and O’Neil who have held the rank of independent 
princes kissed his hand at Whitehall. Thenceforward his writs ran 
and his judges held assizes in every part of Ireland; and the English 
lav superseded the customs which had prevailed among the aboriginal 
tribes. 

In extent Scotland and Ireland were nearly equal to each other, 


42 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


and were together nearly equal to England, but were much less thick. 
ly peopled than England, and were very far behind England in 
wealth and civilisation. Scotland had been kept back by the steril- 
ity of her soil, and, in the midst of light, the thick darkness of the 
middle ages still rested on Ireland. 

The population of Scotland, with the exception of the Celtic tribes 
which were thinly scattered over the Hebrides and over the moun- 
tainous parts of the northern shires, was of the same blood with the 
population of England, and spoke a tongue which did not differ from 
the purest English more than the dialects of Somersetshire and Lan- 
cashire differed from each other. In Ireland, on the contrary, the 
population, with the exception of the small English colony near the 
coast, was Celtic, and still kept the Celtic speech and manners. 

In natural courage and intelligence both the nations which now 
became connected with England ranked high. In perseverance, in 
selfcommand, in forethought, in all the virtues which conduce to 
success in life, the Scots have never been surpassed. The Irish, on 
the other hand, were distinguished by qualities which tend to make 
men interesting rather than prosperous. They were an ardent and 
impetuous race, easily moved to tears or to laughter, to fury or to love. 
Alone among the nations of northern Europe they had the suscep- 
tibility, the vivacity, the natural turn for acting and rhetoric, which 
are indigenous on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. In mental 
cultivation Scotland had an indisputable superiority. Though that 
kingdom was the poorest in Christendom, it already vied in every 
branch of learning with the most favoured countries. Scotsmen, 
whose dwellings and whose food were as wretched as those of the 
Icelanders of our time, wrote Latin verse with more than the delicacy 
of Vida, and made discoveries in science which would have added to — 
the renown of Galileo. Ireland could boast of no Buchanan or 
Napier. The genius, with which her aboriginal inhabitants were 
largely endowed, showed itself as yet only in ballads which, wild 
and rugged as they were, seemed to the judging eye of Spenser to 
contain a portion of the pure gold of poetry. 

Scotland, in becoming part of the British monarchy, preserved her 
dignity. Having, during many generations, courageously withstood 
the-English arms, she was now joined to her stronger neighbour on 
the most honourable terms. She gave a King instead of receiving 
one. Sheretained her own constitution and laws. Her tribunals and 
parliaments remained entirely independent of the tribunals and 
parliaments which sate at Westminster. The administration of 
Scotland was in Scottish hands; for no Englishman had any motive 
to emigrate northward, and te contend with the shrewdest and most 
pertinacious of all races for what was to be scraped together in the — 
poorest of all treasuries. Nevertheless Scotland by no means escaped — 
the fate ordained for every country which is connected, but not in- 
corporated, with another country of greater resources. Though in 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 43 


hame an independent kingdom, she was, during more than a century, 
really treated, in many respects, as a subject province. 

Ireland was undisguisedly governed as a dependency won by the 
sword. Her rude national institutions had perished. The English 
colonists submitted to the dictation of the mother country, without 
-whose support they could not exist, and indemnified themselves by 
trampling on the people among whom they had settled. The parlia- 
ments which met at Dublin could pass no law which had not been 
previously approved by the English Privy Council. The authority 
_of the English legislature extended over Ireland. The executive 
administration was entrusted to men taken either from England or 
from the English pale, and, in either case, regarded as foreigners, 
and even as enemies, by the Celtic population. 

But the circumstance which, more than any other, has made 
Treland to differ from Scotland remains to be noticed. Scotland was 
Protestant. In no part of Europe had the movement of the popular 
mind against the Roman Catholic Church been so rapid and violent. 
The Reformers had vanquished, deposed, and imprisoned their idol- 
atrous sovereign. ‘They would not endure even such a compromise 
as had beeneffectedin England. They had established the Calvinistic 
doctrine, discipline, and worship, and they made little distinction 
between Popery and Prelacy, between the Mass and the Book of 
Common Prayer. Unfortunately for Scotland, the prince whom she 
sent to govern a fairer inheritance had been so much annoyed by the 
pertinacity with which her theologians had asserted against him the 
privileges of the synod and the pulpit that he hated the ecclesiastical 
polity to which she was fondly attached as much as it was in his 
effeminate nature to hate anything, and had no sooner mounted the 
English throne than he began to show an intolerant zeal for the gov- 
ernment and ritual of the English Church. 

The Irish were the only people of northern Europe who had re- 
mained true to the old religion. This is to be partly ascribed to the 
circumstance that they were some centuries behind their neighbours 
in knowledge. But other causes had cooperated. The Reformation 
_ had been a national as well as a moral revolt. It had been, not only 
an insurrection of the laity against the clergy, but also an insurrection 
of all the branches of the great German race against an alien domina- 
tion. It is a most significant circumstance that no large society of 
which the tongue is not Teutonic has ever turned Protestant, and 
that, wherever a language derived trom that of ancient Rome is 
‘spoken, the religion of modern Rome to this day prevails. The 
patriotism of the Irish had taken a peculiar direction. The object 
of their animosity was not Rome, but England; and they had especial 
reason to abhor those English sovereigns who had been the chiefs of 
the great schism, Henry the Eighth and Elizabeth. During the vain 
strugele which two generations of Milesian prices maintained against 
the Tudors, religious enthusiasm and national enthusiasm became 


44 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


inseparably blended in the minds of the vanquished rece. The new 
feud of Protestant and Papist inflamed the old feud of Saxon and 
Celt. The Engtish conquerors, meanwhile, neglected all legitimate 
means of conversion. No care was taken to provide the vanquished 
nation with instructors capable of making themselves understood. 
No translation of the Bible was put forth in the Irish language. The 
government contented itself with setting up a vast hierarchy of Prot- 
’ 3stant archbishops, bishops, and rectors, who did nothing, and who, 
‘or doing nothing, were paid out of the spoils of a Church loved and 
revered by the great body of the people. 

There was much in the state both of Scotland and of Ireland which 
might well excite the painful apprehensions of a farsighted states- 
man. As yet, however, there was the appearance of tranquillity. 
For the first time all the British isles were peaceably united under 
one sceptre. 

It should seem that the weight of England among European nations 
ought, from this epoch, to have greatly increased. ‘The territory 
which her new King governed was, in extent, nearly double that 
which Elizabeth had inherited. His empire was the most complete 
within itself and the most secure from attack that was to be found in 
the world. The Plantagenets and Tudors had been repeatedly under 
the necessity of defending thiemselves against Scotland while they 
were engaged in continental war. The long conflict in Ireland had 
been a severe and perpetual drain on their resources, Yet even un- 
der such disadvantages those sovereigns had been highly considered 
throughout Christendom. It might, therefore, not unreasonably be 
expected that England, Scotland, and Ireland combined would form 
a state second to none that then existed. 

All such expectations were strangely disappointed. On the day of 
the accession of James the First England descended from the rank 
which she had hitherto held, and began to be regarded as a power 
hardly of the second order. During many years the great British 
monarchy, under four successive princes of the House of Stuart, was 
scarcely a more important member of the European system than the 
little kingdom of Scotland had previously been. This, however, is 
little to be regretted. Of James the First, as of John, it may be said 
that, if his administration had been able and splendid, it would prob: 
ably have been fatal to our country, and that we owe more to his 
weakness and meanness than to the wisdom and courage of much 
better sovereigns. He came to the throne at a critical moment. The © 
time was fast approaching when either the King must become abso- 
lute, or the Parliament must control the whole executive administra- 
tion. Had James been, like Henry the Fourth, like Maurice of Nas- — 
sau, or like Gustavus Adolphus, a valiant, active, and politic ruler, 
had he put himself at the head of the Protestants of Europe, had he 
gained great victories over Tilly and Spinola, had he adorned West- 
minster with the spoils of Bavarian monasteries and Flemish cathe- 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 4% 


drals, had he hung Austrian and Castilian banners in Saint Paul’s, and 
had he found himself, after great achievements, at the head of fifty 
thousand troops, brave, well disciplined, and devotedly attached to 
his person, the English Parliament would soon have been nothing 
more than aname. Happily he was not a man to play such a part 
He began his administration by putting an end to the war which had 
raged during many years between England and Spain; and from that 
time he shunned hostilities with a caution which was proof against 
the insults of his neighbours and the clamours of his subjects. Not 
till the last year of his life could the influence of his son, his favour- 
ite, his Parliament, and his people combined, induced him to strike 
one feeble blow in defence of his family and of his religion. It was 
well for those whom he governed that he in this matter disregarded 
their wishes. The effect of his pacific policy was that, in his time, 
no regular troops were needed, and that, while France, Spain, Italy, 
Belgium, and Germany swarmed with mercenary soldiers, the defence 
of our island was still confided to the militia. 

As the King had no standing army, and did not even attempt to 
form one, it would have been wise in him to avoid any conflict with 
his people. But such was his indiscretion that, while he altogether 
neglected the means which alone could make him really absolute, he 
constantly put forward, inthe most offensive form, claims of which 
none of his predecessors had ever dreamed. It was at this time that 
those strange theories which Filmer afterwards formed into a system, 
and which became the badge of the most violent class of Tories and 
high churchmen, first emerged into notice. It was gravely main- 
tained that the Supreme Being regarded hereditary monarchy, as 
opposed to other forms of government, with peculiar favour; that 
the rule of succession in order of primogeniture was a divine institu- 
tion, anterior to the Christian, and even to the Mosaic dispensation; 
that no human power, rot even that of the whole Icgislature, no 
length of adverse possession, though it extended to ten centuries, 
could deprive a legitimate prince of his rights; that the authority of 
such a prince was necessarily always despotic; that the laws, by 
which, in England and in other countries, the prerogative was lim- 
ited, were to be regarded merely as concessions which the sovereign 
had freely made and might at his pleasure resume; and that any 
treaty which a king might conclude with his people was merely a 
declaration of his present intentions, and not a contract of which the 
performance could be demanded. It is evident that this theory, 
though intended to strengthen the foundations of government, alto- 
gether unsettles them. Does the divine and immutable law of pri- 
mogeniture admit females, or exclude them? On either supposition 
half the sovereigns of Europe must be usurpers, reigning in defiance 
of the law of God, and liable to be dispossessed by the rightful heirs. 
The doctrine that kingly government is peculiarly favoured by Heaven 
receives no countenance from the Old Testament; for in the Old 


46 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, 


Testament we read that the chosen people were blamed and punished 
for desiring a king, and that they were afterwards commanded to 
withdraw their allegiance from him. ‘Their whole history, far from 
countenancing the notion that succession in order of primogeniture 
is of divine institution, would rather seem to indicate that younger 
brothers are under the especial protection of heaven. Isaac was 
not the eldest son of Abraham, nor Jacob of Isaac, nor Judah of 
Jacob, nor David of Jesse, nor Solomon of David. Nor does the 
system of Filmer receive any countenance from those passages of the 
New Testament which describe government as an ordinance of God: 
for the government under which the writers of the New Testament 
lived was not a hereditary monarchy. The Roman Emperors were 
republican magistrates, named by the senate. None of them pre- 
tended to rule by right of birth; and, in fact, both Tiberius, to whom 
Christ commanded that tribute should be given, and Nero, whom 
Paul directed the Romans to obey, were, according to the patriarchal 
theory of government, usurpers. In the middle ages the doctrine of 
indefeasible hereditary right would have been regarded as heretical: 
for it was altogether incompatible with the high pretensions of the 
Church of Rome. It was a doctrine unknown to the founders of the 
Church of England. The Homily on Wilful Rebellion had strongly, 
and indeed too strongly, inculcated submission to constituted author- 
ity, but had made no distinction between hereditary and elective 
monarchies, or between monarchies and republics. Indeed most of 
the predecessors of James would, from personal motives, have re- 
garded the patriarchal theory of government with aversion. William 
Rufus, Henry the First, Stephen, John, Henry the Fourth, Henry the 
Fifth, Henry the Sixth, Richard the Third, and Henry the Seventh, 
had all reigned in defiance of the suict rule of descent. A grave 
doubt hung over the legitimacy both of Mary and of Elizabeth. It 
was impossible that both Catharine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn 
could have been lawfully married to Henry the Eighth; and the 
highest authority in the reaim had pronounced that neither was so. 
The Tudors, far from considering the law of succession as a divine 
and unchangeable institution, were constantly tampering witb it. 
Henry the Eighth obtained an act of parliament, giving him power 
to leave the crown by will, and actually made a will to the prejudice 
of the royal family of Scotland. Edward the Sixth, unauthorised by 
Parliament, assumed a similar power, with the full approbation of 
the most eminent Reformers. Elizabeth, conscious that her own title 
was open to grave objection, and unwilling to admit even a rever- 
sionary right in her rival and enemy the Queen of Scots, induced the 
Parliament to pass a law, enacting that whoever should deny the 
competency of the reigning sovereign, with the assent of the Estates 
of the realm, to alter the succession, should suffer death as a traitor. 
But the situation of James was widely different from that of Eliza- 
beth. Far inferior to her in abilities and in popularity, regarded by 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 47 


the English as an alien, and excluded from the throne by the testa- 
ment of Henry the Eighth, the King of Scots was yet the undoubted 
heir of William the Conqueror and of Egbert. He had, therefore, an 
obvious interest in inculcating the superstitious notion that birth con- 
fers rights anterior to law, and unalterable by law. It was a notion, 
- moreover, well suited to his intellect and temper. It soon found 
many advocates among those who aspired to his favour, and made 
rapid progress among the clergy of the Established Church. 

Thus, at the very moment at which a republican spirit began to 
manifest itself strongly in the Parliament and in the country, the 
claims of the monarch took a monstrous form which would have dis- 
gusted the proudest and most arbitrary of those who had preceded 
him on the throne. 

_ James was always boasting of his skill in what he called kingcraft; 

and yet it is hardly possible even to imagine a course more directly 
opposed to all the rules of kingcraft, than that which he followed. 
The policy of wise rulers has always been to disguise strong acts 
under popular forms. It was thus that Augustus and Napoleon 
established absolute monarchies, while the public regarded them 
merely as eminent citizens invested with temporary magistracies. 
The policy of James was the direct reverse of theirs. He enraged 
and alarmed his Parliament by constantly telling them that they held 
their privileges merely during his pleasure, and that they had no 
more business to inquire what he might lawfully do than what the 
Deity might lawfully do. Yet he quailed before them, abandoned 
minister after minister to their vengeance, and suffered them to tease 
him into acts directly opposed to his strongest inclinations. Thus 
the indignation excited by his claims and the scorn excited by his 
concessions went on growing together. By his fondness for worth- 
less minions, and by the sanction which he gave to their tyranny and 
rapacity, he kept discontent constantly alive. His cowardice, his 
childishness, his pedantry, his ungainly person, his provincial accent, 
made him an object of derision. Even in his virtues and accomplish- 
ments there was something eminently unkingly. Throughout the 
whole course of his reign, all the venerable associations by which the 
throne had long been fenced were gradually losing their strength. 
During two hundred years all the sovereigns who had ruled England, 
with the exception of Henry the Sixth, had been strongminded, 
highspirited, courageous, and of princely bearing. Almost all had 
possessed abilities above the ordinary level. It was no light thing 
that on the very eve of the decisive struggle between our Kings and 
their Parliaments, royalty should be exhibited to the world stam- 
mering, slobbering, shedding unmanly tears, trembling at a drawn 
sword, and talking in the style alternately of a buffoon and of a 
pedagogue. 

In the meantime the religious dissensions, by which, from the days 
of Edward the Sixth, the Protestant body had been distracted, had 


48 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


become more formidable'than ever. The interval which had sepa- 
rated the first generation of Puritans from Cranmer and Jewel was 
small indeed when compared with the interval which separated the 
third generation of Puritans from Laud and Hammond. While the 
recollection of Mary's cruelties was still fresh, while the powers of the 
Roman Catholic party still inspired apprehension, while Spain still 
retained ascendency and aspired to universal dominion, all the reform- 
ed sects knew that they had a strong common interest and a deadly 
common enemy. ‘The animosity which they felt towards each other 
was languid when compared with the animosity which they all felt 
towards Rome. Conformists and Nonconformists had heartily joineil 
in enacting penal laws of extreme severity against the Papists. But 
when more than half a century of undisturbed possession hrd given 
confidence to the Established Church, when nine-tenths of the nation 
had become heartily Protestant, when England was at peace with all 
the world, when there was no danger that Popery would be forced by 
foreign arms on the nation, when the last confessors who had stood 
before Bonner had passed away, a change took place in the feeling vf 
the Anglican clergy. Their hostility to the Roman Catholic doctrine 
and discipline was considerably mitigated. Their dislike of the Puri- 
tans, on the other hand, increased daily. The controversies which 
had from the beginning divided the Protestant party took such a form 
as made reconciliation hopeless; and new controversies of still great- 
er importance were added to the old subjects of dispute. 

The founders of the Anglican Church had retained episcopacy as 
an ancient, a decent, and a convenient ecclesiastical polity, but had 
not deciared that form of church government to be of divine institu- 
tion. We have already seen how low an estimate Cranmer had form- 
ed of the office of a Bishop. In the reign of Elizabeth, Jewel, Cooper, 
Whitgift, and other eminent doctors defended prelacy, as innocent, as 
useful, as what the state might lawfully establish, as what, when es- 
tablished by the state, was entitled to the respect of every citizen. 
But they never denied that a Christian community without a Bishop 
might be a pure Church.* On the contrary, they regarded the Prot- 


* On this subject, Bishop Cooper’s language is remarkably clear and strong. 
He maintains, in his Answer to Martin Marprelate, printed in 1589, that no form 
of church government is divinely ordained; that Protestant communities, in es- 
tablishing different forms, have only made a legitimate use of their Christian 
liberty; and that episcopacy is peculiarly suited to England, because the Eng- 
lish constitution is monarchical. ‘‘ All those Churches,”’ says the Bishop, **in 
which the Gospell, in these daies, after great darknesse, was first renewed, and 
the learned men whom God sent to instruct them, I doubt not but have been 
directed by the Spirite of God to retaine this liberty, that, in external government 
and other outward orders, they might choose such as they thought in wisedome 
and godlinesse to be most convenient for the state of their countrey and disposi- 
tion of their people. Why then should this liberty that other countreys have 
used under anie colour be wrested from us? I think it therefore great presump- 
tion and boldnesse that some of our nation, and those, whatever they may think 
of themselves, not of the greatest wisedome and skill, should take upon them 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 49 


estants of the Continent as of the same household of faith with them- 
selves. Englishmen in England were indeed bound to acknowledge 
the authority of the Bishop, as they were bound to acknowledge the 
authority of the Sheriff and of the Coroner: but the obligation was 
purely local. An English Churchman, nay even an English prelate, 
if he went to Holland, conformed without scruple to the established 
religion of Holland. Abroad the ambassadors of Elizabeth and James 
went in state to the very worship which Elizabeth and James perse- 
cuted at home, and carefully abstained from decorating their private 
chapels after the Anglican fashion, lest scandal should be given to 
weaker brethren. An instrument is still extant by which the Primate 
of all England, in the year 1582, authorised a Scotch minister, ordain- 
ed, according to the laudable forms of the Scotch Church, by the 
Synod of East Lothian, to preach and administer the sacraments in 
any part of the province of Canterbury.* In the year 1603, the Con- 
vocation solemnly recognised the Church of Scotland, a Church in 
which episcopal control and episcopal ordination were then unknown, 
as a branch of the Holy Catholic Church of Christ. It was even 
held that Presbyterian ministers were entitled to place and voice in 
cecumenical councils. When the States General of the United Proy- 
inces convoked at Dort a synod of doctors not episcopally ordained, 
an English Bishop and an English Dean, commissioned by the head 
of the English Church, ‘sate with those doctors, preached to them, 
and voted with them on the gravest questions of theology.t Nay, 
many English benefices were held by divines who had been admitted 
to the ministry in the Calvinistic form used on the Continent; nor was 
reordination by a Bishop in such cases then thought necessary, or even 
lawful.§ 

But a new race of divines was already rising in the Church of Eng- 
Jand. In their view the episcopal office was essential to the welfare of 


_ to controlle the whole realme, and to binde both prince and people in respect 

of conscience to alter the present state, and tie themselves to a certain plat- 
forme devised by some of our neighbours, which, in the judgment of many wise 
and godly persons, is most unfit for the state of a Kingdome.”’ 

* Strype’s Life of Grindal, Appendix to Book II. No. xvii. 

+ Canon 55, of 1603. 

t Joseph Hall, then Dean of Worcester, and afterwards bishop of Norwich, 
was one of the commissioners. In his life of himself, he says: ‘‘ My unworthi- 
ness was named for one of the assistants of that honourable, grave, and rever- 
end meeting’ To high churchmen this humility will not seem a little out of 

lace. 

§ It was by the Act of Uniformity, passed after the Restoration, that persons 
not episcopally ordained were, for the first time, made incapable of holding 
benefices. No man was more zealous for this law than Clarendon. Yct he says: 
“This was new; for there had been many, and at present there were some, 
who possessed benefices with cure of souls and other ecclesiastical promotions, 
who had never received orders but in France or Holland; and these men must 
now receive new ordination, which always had been held unlawtul in the 
Church, or by this act of parliament must be deprived of their livelihood which 
they enjoyed in the most flourishing and peaceable time of the Church,” 


50 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


a Christian society and to the efficacy of the most solemn ordinances 
of religion. To that office belonged certain high and sacred privi- 
leges, which no human power could give or take away. <A church 
might as well be without the doctrine of the Trinity, or the doctrine 
of the Incarnation, as without the apostolical orders; and the Church 
of Rome, which, in the midst of all her corruptions, had retained the 
apostolical orders, was nearer to primitive purity than those reformed 
societies which had rashly set up, in opposition to the divine model, 
a system invented by men. 

In the days of Edward the Sixth and of Elizabeth, the defenders of 
the Anglican ritual had generally contented themselves with saying 
that it might be used without sin, and that, therefore, none but a- 
perverse and undutiful subject would refuse to use it when enjoined 
to do so by the magistrate. Now, however, that rising party which 
claimed for the polity of the Church a celestial origin began to ascribe 
to her services a new dignity and importance. It was hinted that, if 
the established worship had any fault, that fault was extreme sim- 
plicity, and that the Reformers had, in the heat of their quarrel with 
Rome, abolished many ancient ceremonies which might with advantage 
have been retained. Days and places were again held in mysterious 
veneration. Some practices which had long been disused, and which 
were commonly regarded as superstitious mummeries, were revived. 
Paintings and carvings, which had escaped the fury of the first gen- 
eration of Protestants, became the objects of a respect such as to 
many seemed idolatrous. 

No part of the system of the old Church had been more detested 
by the Reformers than the honour paid to celibacy. They held that 
the doctrine of Rome on this subject had been prophetically condemn- 
ed by the apostle Paul, as a doctrine of devils; and they dwelt much 
on the crimes and scandals which seemed to prove the justice of this 
awful denunciation. Luther had evinced his own opinion in the | 
clearcst manner, by espousing a nun. Some of the most illustrious 
bishops and priests who had died by fire during the reign of Mary had 
left wives and children. Now, however, it began to be rumoured that 
the old monastic spirit had reappeared in the Church of England; 
that there was in high quarters a prejudice against married priests; 
that even laymen, who called themselves Protestants, had made res- 
olutions of celibacy which almost amounted to vows, nay, that a min- 
ister of the established religion had set up a nunnery, in which the 
psalms were chaunted at midnight, by a company of virgins dedi- 
cated to God.* ; 

Nor was this all. A class of questions, as to which the founders of 
the Anglican Church and the first generation of Puritans had differed 


* Peckard’s Life of Ferrar; The Arminian Nunnery, or a brief description of 
the late erected monastical Place called the Arminian nunnery, at Little Gid. 
ding in Huntingdonshire, 1641. 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. ‘51 


little or not at all, began to furnish matter for fierce disputes. The 
controversies which had divided the Protestant body in its infancy 
had related almost exclusively to Church government and to ceremo- 
nies. ‘There had been no serious quarrel between the contending 
parties on points of metaphysical theology. The doctrines held by 
the chiefs of the hierarchy touching original sin, faith, grace, predes- 
tination, and election, were those which are popularly called Calvin- 
istic. ‘Towards the close of Elizabeth’s reign her favorite prelate, 
Archbishop Whitgift, drew up, in concert with the Bishop of Lon- 
don and other theologians, the celebrated instrument known by the 
name of the Lambeth Articles. In that instrument the most start- 
ling of the Calvinistic doctrines are affirmed with a distinctness 
which would shock many who, in our age, are reputed Calvinists. 
One clergyman, who took the opposite side, and spoke harshly of 
Calvin, was arraigned for his presumption by the University of 
Cambridge, and escaped punishment only by expressing his firm be- 
lief in the tenets of reprobation and final perseverance, and his sorrow 
for the offence which he had given to pious men by reflecting on the 
great French reformer. The school of divinity of which Hooker 
was the chief occupies a middle place between the school of Cranmer 
and the school of Laud; and Hooker has, in modern times, been 
claimed by the Arminians as an ally. Yet Hooker pronounced Cal- 
vin to have been a man superior in wisdom to any other divine that 
France had produced, a man to whom thousands were indebted for 
the knowledge of divine truth, but who was himself indebted to God 
alone. When the Arminian controversy arose in Holland, the Eng- 
lish government and the English Church lent strong support to the 
Calvinistic party; nor is the English name altogether free from the 
stain which has been left on that party by the imprisonment of Gro- 
tius and the judicial murder of Barneveldt. 
But, even before the meeting of the Dutch synod, that part of the 
“Anglican clergy which was peculiarly hostile to the Calvinistic 
Church government and to the Calvinistic worship had begun to regard 
with dislike the Calvinistic metaphysics; and this feeling was very 
naturally strengthened by the gross injustice, insolence, and cruelty 
of the party which was prevalent at Dort. The Arminian doctrine, 
a doctrine less austerely logical than that of the early Reformers, but 
more agreeable to the popular notions of the divine justice and be- 
nevolence, spread fast and wide. The infection soon reached the 
court. Opinions which at the time of the accession of James, no 
clergyman could have avowed without imminent risk of being 
stripped of his gown, were now the best title to preferment. A 
divine of that age, who was asked by a simple country gentleman 
what the Arminians held, answered, with as much truth as wit, 
that they held all the best bishoprics and deaneries in England. 
While the majority of the Anglican clergy quitted, in one direc- 
tion, the position which they had originally occupied, the majority 


a HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


of the Puritan body departed, in a direction diametrically opposite, 
from the principles and practices of their fathers. The persecution 
which the separatists had undergone had been severe enough to irri- 
tate, but not severe enough to destroy. They had been, not tamed 
into submission, but baited into savageness and stubbornness. After 
the fashion of oppressed sects, they mistook their own vindictive feel- 
ings for emotions of piety, encouraged in themselves by reading 
and meditation a disposition to brood over their wrongs, and, when 
they had worked themselves up into hating their enemies, imagined 
that they were only hating enemies of heaven, In the New Testa- 
ment there was little indeed which, even when perverted by the most 
disengenuous exposition, could seem to countenance the indulgence of 
malevolent passions. But the Old Testament contained the history 
of a race selected by God to be witnesses of his unity and ministers 
of his vengeance, and especially commanded by him to do many 
things which, if done without his special command, would have 
been atrocious crimes. In sucha history it was not difficult for fierce 
and gloomy spirits to find much that might be distorted to suit their 
wishes. The extreme Puritans therefore began to feel for the Old 
Testament a preference, which, perhaps, they did not distinctly 
avow even to themselves; but which showed itself in all their senti- 
ments and habits. They paid to the Hebrew language a respect 
which they refused to that tongue in which the discourses of Jesus 
and the epistles of Paul have come down to us. ‘They baptized 
their children by the names, not of Christian saints, but of Hebrew 
patriarchs and warriors. In defiance of the express and reiterated 
declarations of Luther and Calvin, they turned the weekly festival 
by which the Church had, from the primitive times, commemorated 
the resurrection of her Lord, into a Jewish Sabbath. They sought 
for principles of jurisprudence in the Mosaic law, and for precedents 
to guide their ordinary conduct in the books of Judges and Kings. 
Their thoughts and discourse ran much on acts which were assuredly 
not recorded as examples for our imitation. The prophet who 
hewed in pieces a captive king, the rebel general who gave the blood 
ofa queen to the dogs, the matron who, in defiance of plighted faith, 
and of the laws of eastern hospitality, drove the nail into the brain 
of the fugitive ally who had just fed at her board, and who was sleeping 
under the shadow of her tent, were proposed as models to Christians 
suffering under the tyranny of princes and prelates. Morals and 
manners were subjected to a code resembling that of the synagogue, 
when the synagogue was in its worst state. The dress, the deport- 
ment, the language, the studies, the amusements of the rigid sect 
were regulated on principles not untike those of the Pharisees who, 
proud of their washed hands and broad phylacteries, taunted the 
Redeemer as a sabbathbreaker and winebibber. It was a sin to hang 
garlands on a Maypole, to drink a friend’s health, to fly a hawk, to 
hunt a stag, to play at chess, to wear love-locks, to put starch into a 


HiSTORY Jf ENGLAND. Jd 


ruff, to touch the virginals, to read the Fairy Queen. Rules such as 
these, rules which would have appeared insupportable to the free 
and joyous spirit of Luther, and contemptible to the serene and phil- 
osophical intellect of Zwingle, threw over all life a more than monas- 
tic gloom. The learning and eloquence by which the great Reform- 
ers had been eminently distinguished, and to which they had been, 
in no small measure, indebted for their success, were regarded by 
the new school of Protestants with suspicion, if not with aversion. 
Some precisians had scruples about teaching the Latin grammar, be- 
cause the names of Mars, Bacchus, and Apollo occurred in it. The 
fine arts were all but proscribed. The solemn peal of the organ was 
superstitious. The light music of Ben Jonson’s masques was disso- 
lute. Half the fine paintings in England were idolatrous, and the 
other half indecent. The extreme Puritan was at once known from 
other men by his gait, his garb, his lank hair, the sour selemnity of 
his face, the upturned white of his eyes, the nasal twang with which 
he spoke, and above all, by his peculiar dialect. He employed, on 
every occasion, the imagery and style of Scripture. Hebraisms vio- 
lently introduced into the English language, and metaphors borrowed 
from the boldest lyric poetry of a remote age and country, and ap- 
plied to the common concerns of English life, were the most striking 
peculiarities of this cant, which moved, not without cause, the deri- 
sion both of Prelatists and libertines, 

Thus the political and religious schism which had originated in 
the sixteenth century was, during the first quarter of the seven- 
teenth century, constantly widening. Theories tending to Turkish 
despotism were in fashion at Whitehall. Theories tending to repub- 
licanism were in favour with a large portion of the House of Com- 
mons. The violent Prelatists who were, to a man, zealous for pre- 
rogative, and the violent Puritans who were, to a man, Zealous for 
the privileges of Parliament, regarded each other with animosity 
more intense than that which, in the preceding generation, had ex 
isted between Catholics and Protestants. 

While the minds of men were in this state, the country, after « 
peace of many years, at length engaged in a war which required 
strenuous exertions. ‘This war hastened the approach of the great 
constitutional crisis. It was necessary that the King should have 
_ @ large military force. He could not have such a force without 
money. He could not legally raise money without the consent 
of Parliament. It followed, therefore, that he either must adminis- 
ter the government in conformity with the sense of the House of 
Commons, or must venture on such a violation of the fundamental 
laws of the land as had been unknown during several centuries. 
The Plantagenets and the Tudors had, it is true, occasionally sup- 
plied a deficiency in their revenue by a benevolence or a forced 
loan: but these expedients were always of a temporary nature. To 
meet the regular charge of a long war by regular taxation, imposed 


54 . HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


without the consent of the Estates of the realm, was a course which 
Henry the Eighth himself would not have dared to take. It seemed, 
therefore, that the decisive hour was approaching, and that the Eng- 
lish Parliament would soon either share the fate of the senates of the 
Continent, or obtain supreme ascendency in the state. 

Just at this conjuncture James died. Charles the First succeeded 
to the throne. He had received from nature a far better understand- 
ing, a far stronger will, and a far keener and firmer temper than his 
father’s. He had inherited his father’s political theories, and was 
much more disposed than his father to carry them into practice. He 
was, like his father, a zealous Episcopalian. He was, .moreover, 
what his father had never been, a zealous Arminian, and, though no 
Papist, liked a Papist much better than a Puritan. It would be un- 
just to deny that Charles had some of the qualities of a good, and 
even of a great prince. He wrote and spoke, not, like his father, 
with the exactness of a professor, but after the fashion of intelligent 
and well educated gentlemen. His taste in literature and art was 
excellent, his manner dignified, though not gracious, his domestic — 
life without blemish. Faithlessness was the chief cause cf his dis- 
asters, and is the chief stain on his memory. He was, in truth, im- 
pelled by an incurable propensity to dark and crooked ways. It may 
seem strange that his conscience, which on occasions of little mo- 
ment was sufficiently sensitive, should never have reproached him 
with this great vice. But there is reason to believe that he was per- 
fidious, not only from constitution and from habit, but also on prin- 
ciple. He scems to have learned from the theologians whom he most. 
esteemed that between him and his subjects there could be nothing 
of the nature of mutual contract; that he could not, evenif he would, 
divest himself of his despotic authority; and that, in every promise 
which he made, there was an implied reservation that such promise 
might be broken in case of necessity, and that of the necessity he 
was the sole judge. 

And now began that hazardous game on which were staked the desti- 
nies of the English people. It was played on the side of the House of 
Commons with keenness, but with admirable dexterity, coolness, and 
perseverance. Great statesmen who looked far behind them and far 
beforethem were at the head of that assembly. They were resolved to 
place the King in such a situation that he must either conduct the ad- 
ministration in conformity with the wishes of his Parliament, or 
make outrageous attacks on the most sacred principles of the consti- 
tution. They accordingly doled out supplies to him very sparingly. 
He found that he must govern either in harmony with the House of 
Commons, or in defiance of all law. His choice was soonmade. He 
dissolved his first Parliament, and levied taxes by his own authority. 
He convoked a second Parliament, and found it more intractable than _ 
the first. He asain resorted to the expedient of dissolution, raised ~ 
fresh taxes without any show of legal right, and threw the chiefs of | 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 55 


the opposition into prison. At the same time a new grievance, which 
the peculiar feelings and habits of the English nation made insup- 
portably painful, and which seemed to all discerning men to be of 
fearful augury, excited general discontent and alarm. . Companies of 
soldiers were billeted on the people; and martial law was, in some 
places, substituted for the ancient jurisprudence of the realm. 

The King called a third Parliament, and soon perceived that the 
opposition was stronger and fiercer than ever. He now determined 
on a change of tactics. Instead of opposing an inflexible resistance 
to the demands of the Commons, he, after much altercation and 
many evasions, agreed to a compromise which, if he had faithfully 
adhered-to it, would have averted along series of calamities. The 
Parliament granted an ample supply. The King ratified, in the most 
solemn manner, that celebrated law, which is known by the name of 
the Petition of Right, and which is the second Great Charter of the 
liberties of England. By ratifying that law he bound himself never 
again to raise money without the consent of the Houses, never again 
to imprison any person, except in due course of law, and never again 
to subject his people to the jurisdiction of courts martial. 

The day on which the royal sanction was, after many delays, 
solemnly given to this great Act, wasa day of joy and hope. The 
Commons, who crowded the bar of the House of Lords, broke forth 

‘into loud acclamations as soon as the clerk had pronounced the ancient 

form of words by which our princes have, during many ages, signi- 
fied their assent to the wishes of the Estates of the realm. Those 
acclamations were reechoed by the voice of the capital and of the 
nation; but within three weeks it became manifest that Charles had 
no intention of observing the compact into which he had entered. 
The supply given by the representatives of the nation was collected. 
The promise by which that supply had been obtained was broken. 
A violent contest followed. The Parliament was dissolved with every 
mark of royal displeasure. Some of the most distinguished members 
were imprisoned; and one of them, Sir John Eliot, after years of 
suffering, died in confinement. 

Charles, however, could not venture to raise, by his own authority, 
taxes sufficient for carrying on war. He accordingly hastened to 
make peace with his neighbours, and thenceforth gave his whole mind 
to British politics. 

Now commenced a new era. Many English Kings had occasion 
ally committed unconstitutional acts: but none had ever systematically 
attemptea to make himself a despot, and to reduce the Pariiament 
to a nullity. Such was the end which Charles distinctly proposed to 
himself. From March i629 to April 1640, the Houses were not con- 
voked. Never in our history had there been an interval of eleven 
years between Parliament and Parliament. Only once had there been 
an interval of even half that length. This fact alone is sufficient to 
refute those who represent Charles as having merely trodden in the 
footsteps of the Plautagenets and Tudors. 


56 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


It is proved, by the testimony of'the King’s most strenuous sup- 
porters, that, during this part of his reign, the provisions of the Pe- 
tition of Right were violated by him, not occasionally, but constantly, 


and on system; that a large part of the revenue was raised without - 


any legal authority; and that persons obnoxious to the government 
languished for years in prison, without being ever called upon to plead 
before any tribunal. 

For these things history must hold the King himself chiefly respon- 
sible. From the time of his third Parliament he was his own prime 
minister. Several persons, however, whose temper and talents were 
suited to his purposes, were at the head of different departments of 
the administration. 

Thomas Wentworth, successively created Lord Wentworth and 
Earl of Strafford, a man of great abilities, eloquence, and courage, 
but of a cruel and imperious nature, was the counsellor most trusted 
in political and military affairs. He had been one of the most dis- 
tinguished members of the opposition, and felt towards those whom 
he had deserted that peculiar malignity which has, in all ages, been 


characteristic of apostates. He perfectly understood the feelings, the 


resources, and the policy of the party to which he had lately belonged, 
and had formed a vast -and deeply meditated scheme which very 
nearly confounded even the able tactics of the statesmen by whom 
the House of Commons had been directed. ‘To this scheme, in his 
confidential correspondence, he gave the expressive name of Thorough. 
His object was to do in England all, and more than all, that Richelieu 
was doing in France; to make Charles a monarch as absolute as any 
on the Continent; to put the estates and the personal liberty of the 
whole people at the disposal of the crown; to deprive the courts of 
law of all independent authority, even in ordinary questions of civil 
right between man and man; and to punish with merciless rigour all 
who murmured at the acts of the government, or who applied, even 
in the most decent and regular manner, to any tribunal for relief 
against those acts. * 

This was his end; and he distinctly saw in what manner alone this 
end could be attained. There was, in truth, about all his notions a 
clearness, a coherence, a precision, which, if he had not been pursu- 
ing an object pernicious to his country and to his kind, would have 
justly entitled him to high admiration. He saw that there was one 
instrument, and only one, by which his vast and daring projects 


could be carried into execution. That instrument was a standing 


* The correspondence of Wentworth seems to me fully to bear out what I 
have said in the text. To transcribe all the passages which have led me to the 
conclusion at which I have arrived, would be impossible; nor would it be ¢ isy 
to make a better selection than has already been made by Mr. Hallam, Int ‘y, 
however, direct the attention of the reader particularly to the very able pa er 
which Wentworth drew up respecting the affairs of the Palatinate. The det ‘s 
March 31, 1637. 


; . = 
as — 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 57 


army. ‘To the forming of such an army, therefore, he directed all 
the energy of his strong mind. In Ireland, where he was viceroy, he 
actually succeeded in establishing a military despotism, not only over 
the aboriginal population, but also over the English colonists, and 
was able to boast that, in that island, the King was as absolute as 
any prince in the whole world could be.* 
The ecclesiastical administration was, in the meantime, principally 
directed by William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury. Of all the 
prelates of the Anglican Church, Laud had departed farthest from 
the principles of the Reformation, and had drawn nearest to Rome. 
His theology was more remote than even that of the Dutch Armin- 
jans from the theology of the Calvinists. His passion for cere 
monies, his reverence for holidays, vigils, and sacred places, his ill 
concealed dislike of the marriage of ecclesiastics, the ardent and not 
altogether disinterested zeal with which he asserted the claims of the 
clergy to the reverence of the laity, would have made him an 
object of aversion to the Puritans, even if he had used only legal 
and gentle means for the attainment of hisends. But his un- 
derstanding was narrow; and his commerce with the world had 
been small. He was by nature rash, irritable, quick to feel for 
his own dignity, slow to sympathise with the sufferings of others, 
and prone to the error, common in superstitious men, of mistak- 
ing his own peevish and malignant moods for emotions of pious 
zeal. Under his direction every corner of the realm was sub- 
jected to a constant and minute inspection. Every little congre- 
_ gation of separatists was tracked out and broken up. liven the de- 
votions of private families could not escape the vigilance of his spies. 
Such fear did his rigour inspire that the deadly hatred of the Church, 
which festered in innumerable bosoms, was generally disguised 
under an outward show of conformity. On the very eve of troubles, 
fatal to himself and to his order, the Bishops of several extensive 
dioceses were able to report to him that not a single dissenter was to 
be found within their jurisdiction. + 
The tribunals afforded no protection to the subject against the civil 
and ecclesiastical tranny of that period. The judges of the common 
law, holding their situations during the pleasure of the King, were 
_scandalously obsequious. Yet, obsequious as they were, they were 
less ready and less efficient instruments of arbitrary power than a 
class of courts, the memory of which is still, after the lapse of more 
than two centuries, held in deep abhorrence by the nation. Fore- 
most among these courts in power and in infamy were the Star 
Chamber and the High Commission, the former a political, the latter 
a religious inquisition. Neither wasa part of the old constitution 


ee are Wentworth’s own words. See his letter to Laud, dated Dec. 16, 


+ See his report to Charles for the year 1639, 


~ 


58 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


of England. The Star Chamber had been remodelled, and the High 
Commision created, by the Tudors. The power which these boards 
had possessed before the accession of Charles had been extensive and 
formidable, but had been small indeed when compared with that 
which they now usurped. Guided chiefly by the violent spirit of 
the primate, and freed from the control of Parliament, they dis- 
played a rapacity, a violence, a malignant energy, which had been 
unknown to any formerage. The government was able through 
their instrumentality, to fine, imprison, pillory, and mutilate without 
restraint. A separate council which sate at York, under the presi- 
dency of Wentworth, was armed, in defiance of law, by a pure act 
of prerogative, with almost boundless power over the northern 
counties. All these tribunals insulted and defied the authority of 
Westminster Hall, and daily committed excesses which the most dis- 
tinguished Royalists have warmly condemned. We are informed by 
Clarendon that there was hardly a man of note m the realm who 
had not personal experience of the harshness and greediness of the 
Star Chamber, that the High Commission had so conducted itself 
that it had scarce a friend left in the kingdom, and that the tyranny 
of the Council of York had made the Great Charter a dead letter on 
the north of the Trent. 

The government of England was now, in all points but one, as 
despotic as that of France. But that one point was ai important. 
There was still no standing army. There was therefore no security 
that the whole fabric of tyranny might not be subverted in a single 
day; and, if taxes were imposed by the royal authority for the sup- 
port of an army, it was probable that there would be an immediate 
and irresistible explosion. ‘This was the difficulty which more than 
any other perplexed Wentworth. The Lord Keeper Finch, in concert 
with other lawyers who were employed by the government, recom- 
mended an expedient which was eagerly adopted. The ancient 
princes of England, as they called on the inhabitants of the counties 
near Scotland to arm and array themselves for the defence of the 
border, had sometimes called on the maritime counties to furnish 
ships for the defence of the coast. In the room of ships money had 
sometimes been accepted. This old practice it was now determined, 
after a long interval, not only to revive but to extend. Former 
princes had raised shipmoney only in time of war: it was now ex- 
acted in a time of profound peace. Former princes, even in the 
most perilous wars, had raised shipmoney only along the coasts: it 
was now exacted from the inland shires. Former princes had raised 
shipmoney only for the maritime defence of the country: it was now 
exacted, by the admission of the Royalists themselves, with the ob- 
ject, not of maintaining a navy, but of furnishing the King with 
supplies which might be increassd at his discretion to any amount, 
and expended at his discretion for any purpose, . 

The whole nation was alarmed and incensed. John Hampden, an 


4 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 59 


opulent and well born gentleman of Buckinghamshire, highly con- 
_ sidered in his own neighbourhood, but as yet little known to the 
_ kingdom generally, had the courage to step forward, to confront the 
whcle power of the government, and take on himself the cost and 
the risk of disputing the prerogative to which the King laid claim. 
The case was argued before the judges in the Exchequer Chamber. 
So strong were the arguments against the pretensions of the crown 
-that, dependent and servile as the judges were, the majority against 
Hampden was the smallest possible. Still there was a majority. The 
interpreters of the law had pronounced that one great and productive 
tax might be imposed by the royal authority. Wentworth justly ob- 
served that it was impossible to vindicate their judgment except by 
reasons directly leading to a conclusion which they had not ventured 
to draw. lf money might legally be raised without the consent of 
Parliament for the support of a fleet, it was not easy to deny that 
money might, without consent of Parliament, be legally raised for 
the support of an army. 

The decision of the judges increased the irritation of the people. 
A century earlier, irritation less serious would have produced a 
general rising. But discontent did not now so readily as in an 
earlier age take the form of rebellion. The nation had been long 
steadily advancing in wealth and in civilisation. Since the great 
northern Earls took up arms against Elizabeth seventy years had 
elapsed; and during those seventy years there had been no civil war. 
Never, during the whole existence of the English nation, had su long 
a period passed without ‘ntestine hostilities. Men had become ac- 
customed to the pursuits of peaceful industry, and, exasperated as 
they were, hesitated long before they drew the sword. 

This was the conjuncture at which the liberties of the nation were 
in the greatest peril. The opponents of the government began to de- 
spair of the destiny of their country; and many looked to the Ameri- 
can wilderness as the only asylum in which they could enjoy civil 
and spiritual freedom. There afew resolute Puritans, who, in the 
cause of their religion, feared neither the rage of the ocean nor the 
hardships of uncivilised life, neither the fangs of savage beasts nor 
the tomahawks of more savage men, had built, amidst the primeval * 
forests, villages which are now great and opulent cities, but which 
have, through every change, retained some trace of the character de- 
rived from their founders. The government regarded these infant 
colonies with aversion, and attempted violently to stop the stream of 
emigration, but could not prevent the population of New England 
from being largely recruited by stouthearted and Godfearing men 
from every part of the old England. And now Wentworth exulted 
in the near prospect of Thorough. A few years might probably suf- 
- fice for the execution of his great design. If strict economy were 
observed, if all collision with foreign powers were carefully avoided, 
the debts of the crown would be cleared off; there would be funds 


30 AISTORY OF ENGLAND 


available for the support of a large military force; and that force 
would soon break the refractory spirit of the nation. 

At this crisis an act of insane bigotry suddenly changed the whole 
face of public affairs. Had the King been wise, he would have pur- 
sued a cautious and soothing policy towards Scotland till he was mas- 
ter in the South. For Scotland was of all his kingdoms that in which 
there was the greatest risk that a spark might produce a flame, and 
that a flame might become a confiagration. - Constitutional opposi- 
tion, indeed, such as he had encountered at Westminster, he had not 
to apprehend at Edinburgh. The Parliament of his northern king- 
dom was a very different body from that which bore the same name 
in England. It was ill constituted. it was little considered; and it 
had never imposed any serious restraint on any of his predeces- 
sors. The three Estates sate in one house. The commissioners of 
the burghs were considered merely as retainers of the great nobles. 
No act could be introduced till it had been approved by the Lords of 
Articles, a committee which was really, though not in form, nomi- 
nated by the crown. But, though the Scottish Parliament was ob- 
sequious, the Scottish people had always been singularly turbulent 
and ungovernable. They had butchered their first James in his bed- 
chamber: they had repeatedly arrayed themselves in arms against 
James the Second; they had slain James the Third on the field of 
battle: their disobedience had' broken the heart of James the Fifth: 
they had deposed and imprisoned Mary: they had led her son cap- 
tive; and their temper was still as intractable as ever. Their habits 


were rude and martial. AJ] along the southern border, and all along | 


the line between the highlands and the lowlands, raged an incessant 
predatory war. In every part of the country men were accustomed 
to redress their wrongs by the strong hand. Whatever loyalty the 
nation had anciently felt to the Stuarts had cooled during their long 
absence. The supreme influence over the public mind was divided 
between two classes of malecontents, the lords of the soil and the 
preachers; lords animated by the same spirit which had often im- 
pelled the old Douglasses to withstand the royal house, and preachers 
who had inherited the republican opinions and the unconquerable 
spirit of Knox. Both the national and religious feelings of the popu- 
lation had been wounded. All orders of men complained that their 
country, that country which had, with so much glory, defended her 
independence against the ablest and bravest Plantagenets, had, 
through the instrumentality of her native princes, become in effect, 
though not in name, a province of England. In no part of Europe 
had the Calvinistic doctrine and discipline taken so strong a hold on 
the public mind. The Church of Rome was regarded by the great 


body of the people with a hatred which might justly be called fero- | 


cious; and the Church of England, which seemed to be every day be- 
coming more and more like the Church of Rome, was an object of 
scarcely less aversion. : Sak 


ee 5 a, 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 61 


The government had long wished to extend the Anglican system 
over the whole island, and had already, with this view, made several 
changes highly distasteful to every Presbyterian. One innovation, 
however, the most hazardous of all, because it was directly cognis- 
able by the senses of the common people, had not yet been attempted. 
The public worship of God was still conducted in the manner ac- 
ceptable to the nation. Now, however, Charles and Laud determined 
to force on the Scots the English liturgy, or rather a liturgy which, 
wherever it differed from that of England, differed, in the judgment 
of all rigid Protestants, for the worse. 

To this step, taken in the mere wantonness of tyranny, and in 
criminal ignorance or more criminal contempt of public feeling, our 
country owes her freedom. The first performance of the foreign 
ceremonies produced a riot. The riot rapidly became a revolution. 
Ambition, patriotism, fanaticism, were mingled in one headlong tor- 
rent. The whole nation was in arms. The power of England was 


indeed, as appeared some years later, sufficient to coerce Scotland: 


\ 


but a large part of the English people sympathised with the religious 
feélings of the insurgents; and many Englishmen who had no scruple 
about antiphonies and genuflexions, altars and surplices, saw with 
pleasure the progress of a rebellion which seemed likely to confound 
the arbitrary projects of the court, and to make the calling of a Par- 
liament necessary. 

For the senseless freak which had produced thesé effects Went- 
worth is not responsible.* It had, in fact, thrown all his plans into 
confusion. To counsel submission, however, was not in his nature. 
An attempt was made to put down the insurrection by the sword: 
but the King’s military means and military talents were unequal to 
the task. ‘To impose fresh taxes on England in defiance of law, 
would, at this conjuncture, have been madness. No resource was 
left but a Parliament; and in the spring of 1640 a Parliament was 


convoked. 


The nation had been put into good humour by the prospect of see- 
ing constitutional government restored, and grievances redressed. 
The new House of Commons was more temperate and more respect- 
ful to the throne than any which had sate since the death of Eliza- 
beth. ‘The moderation of this assembly has been highly extolled by 
the most distinguished Royalists, and seems to have caused no small 
vexation and disappointment to the chiefs of the opposition: but it 
was the uniform practice of Charles, a practice equally impolitic and 
ungenerous, to refuse all compliance with the desires of his people, 
till those desires were expressed in a menacing tone. As soon as the 
Commons showed a disposition to take into consideration the griev- 
ances under which the country had suffered during eleven years, 
the King dissolved the Parliament with every mark of displeasure. 


M. EK. i.—3 


62 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


Between the dissolution of thisshortlived assembly and the meeting 
of that ever memorable body known by the name of the Long Parlia- 
ment, intervened a few months, during which the yoke was pressed 
down more severely than ever on the nation, while the spirit of the na- 
tion rose up more angrily than ever against the yoke. Members of the 
House of Commons were questioned by the Privy Council touching their 
parliamentary conduct, and thrown into prison for refusing to reply. 
Shipmoney was levied with increased rigour. The Lord Mayor and 
the Sheriffs of London were threatened with imprisonment -for 
remissness in collecting the payments. Soldiers were enlisted by ° 
force. Money for their support was exacted from their counties. _ 
‘Torture, which had always been illegal, and which had recently been _ 
declared illegal even by the servile judges of that age, was inflicted 
for the last time in England in the month of May, 1640. 

Everything now depended on the event of the King’s military op- 
erations against the Scots. Among his troops there was little of that 
feeling which separates professional soldiers from the mass of a na- 

* tion, and attaches them to their leaders. His army, composed for the 
most part of recruits, who regretted the plough from which they had ~ 
been violently taken, and who were imbued with the religious and 
political sentiments than prevalent throughout the country, was more 
formidable to himself than to the enemy. ‘The Scots, encouraged by 
the heads of the English opposition, and feebly resisted by the Eng- 
lish forces, marched across the Tweed and the Tyne, and encamped 
on the borders of Yorkshire. And now the murmurs of discontent 
swelled into an uproar by which all spirits save one were overawed. 
But the voice of Strafford was still for Thorough; and he even, in 
this extremity, showed a nature so cruel and despotic, that his own 
pikemen were ready to tear him in pieces. : 

There was yet one last expedient which, as the King flattered him- 
self, might save him from the misery of facing another House of 
Commons. ‘Tothe House of Lords he was less averse. The Bishops 
were devoted to him; and though the temporal peers were generally 
dissatisfied with his administration, they were, as a class, so deeply 
interested in the maintenance of order, and in the stability of ancient 
institutions, that they were not likely to call for extensive reforms. 
Departing from the uninterrupted practice of centuries, he called a 
Great Council consisting of Lords alone. But the Lords were too — 
prudent to assume the unconstitutional functions with which he — 
wished to invest them. Without money, without credit, without — 
authority even in his own camp, he yielded to the pressure of neces- — 
sity. ‘The Houses were convoked; and the elections proved that, — 
since the spring, the distrust and hatred with which the government — 
was regarded had made fearful progress. a 

In November, 1640, met that renowned Parliament which, in spite 
of many errors and disasters, is justly entitled to the reverence and 
gratitude of all who, in any part of the world, enjoy the blessings of 
constitutional government. . 


ee ae ee ee ee 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 63 


During the year which followed, no very important division of 
opinion appeared in the Houses. The civil and ecclesiastical admin- 
istration had, through a period of nearly twelve years, been so op- 
pressive and so unconstitutional that even those classes of which the 
inclinations are generally on the side of order and authority were 
eager to promote popular reforms, and to bring the instruments of 
tyranny to justice. It was enacted that no interval of more than 
three years should ever elapse between Parliament and Parliament, 
and that, if writs under the Great Seal were not issued at the proper 
time, the returning officers should, without such writs, call the con- 
stituent bodies together for the choice of representatives. The Star 
Chamber, the High Commission, the Council of York were swept 
away. Men who, after suffering cruel mutilations, had been confined 
in remote dungeons, regained their liberty. On the chief ministers 
of the crown the vengeance of the nation was unsparingly wreaked. 
The Lord Keeper, the Primate, the Lord Lieutenant were impeached. 
Finch saved himself by flight. Laud was flung into the Tower. 
Strafford was put to death by act of attainder. On the day on which 
this act passed, the King gave his assent to a law by which he bound 
himself not to adjourn, prorogue, or dissolve the existing Parliament 
without its own consent. 

After ten months of assiduous toil, the Houses, in September, 1641, 
adjoined for a short vacation; and the King visited Scotland. He 
with difficulty pacified that kingdom by consenting, not only to re- 
linquish his plans of ecclesiastical reform, but even to pass, with a 
very bad grace, an act declaring that episcopacy was contrary to the 
word of God. 

The recess of the English Parliament lasted six weeks. The day 
on which the Houses met again is one of the most remarkable epochs 
in our history. From that day dates the corporate existence of the 
two great parties which have ever since alternately governed the 
country. In one sense, indeed, the distinction which then became 
obvious had always existed, and always must exist. For it has its 
origin in diversities of temper, of understanding, and of interest, 
which are found in all societies, and which will be found till the 
human mind ceases to be drawn in opposite directions by the charm 
of habit and by the charm of novelty. Not only in politics but in 
literature, in art, in science, in surgery and mechanics, in navigation 
and agriculture, nay, even in mathematics, we find this distinction. 
Everywhere there is a class of men who cling with fondness to what- 
ever is ancient, and who, even when convinced by overpowering 
reasons that innovation would be beneficial, consent to it with many 
misgivings and forebodings. We find also everywhere another class 
of men, sanguine in hope, bold in speculation, always pressing for- 
ward, quick to discern the imperfections of whatever exists, disposed 
to think lightly of the risks and izconveniences which attend im- 
provements, and disposed to give every change credit for being an 


64 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


improvement. In the sentiments of both classes there is something 
to approve. But of both the best specimens will be found not far 
from the common frontier. The extreme section of one class consists 
of bigoted dotards: the extreme section of the other consists of shal- 
low and reckless empirics. , 

There can be no doubt that in our very first Parliaments might 
have been discerned a body of members anxious to preserve, and a 
' body eager to reform. But, while the sessions of the legislature were 
short, these bodies did not take definite and permanent forms, array 
themselves under recognised leaders, or assume distinguishing names, 
badges, and war cries. During the first months of the Long Parlia- 
ment, the indignation excited by many years of lawless oppression 
was so strong and general that the House of Commons acted as one 
man. Abuse after abuse disappeared without a struggle. If a small 
minority of the representative body wished to retain the Star Cham- 
ber and the High Commission, that minority, overawed by the en- 
thusiasm and by the numerical superiority of the reformers, content- 
ed itself with secretly regretting institutions which could not, with 
any hope of success, be openly defended. At a later period the 
Royalists found it convenient to antedate the separation between 
themselves and their opponents, and to attribute the Act which re- 
strained the King from dissolving or proroguing the Parliament, the 
Triennial Act, the impeachment of the ministers, and the attainder 


of Strafford, to the faction which afterwards made war on the King. | 


But no artifice could be more disingenuous. Every one of those 
strong measures was actively promoted by the men who were after- 
wards foremost among the Cavaliers. No republican spoke of the 
long misgovernment of Charles more severely than Colepepper. The 
most remarkable speech in favour of the Triennial Bill was made by 
Digby. The impeachment of the Lord Keeper was moved by 
Falkland. The demand that the Lord Lieutenant should be kept 
close prisoner was made at the bar of the Lords by Hyde. Not till 
the law attainting Strafford was proposed did the signs of serious dis- 
union become visible. Even against that law, a law which nothing 
but extreme necessity could justify, only about sixty members of the 
House of Commons voted. It is certain that Hyde was not in the 
minority, and that Falkland not only voted with the majority, but 
spoke strongly for the bill. Even the few who entertained a scruple 


about inflicting death by a retrospective enactment thought it neces- 


sary to express the utmost abhorrence of Strafford’s character and 
administration. 


But under this apparent concord a great schism was latent; and — 
when, in October, 1641, the Parliament reassembled after a short re- — 
cess, two hostile parties, essentially the same with those which, under — 


different names, have ever since contended, and are still contending, 
for the direction of public affairs, appeared confronting each other. 
During some years they were designated as Cavaliers and Round- 


> 
' nk: 
a elt gine a 


SS ee ee 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 65 


heads. They were subsequently called Tories and Whigs; nor does 
it seem that these appellations are likely soon to become obsolete. 

It would not be difficult to compose a lampoon or panegyric on 
either of these renowned factions. For no man not utterly destitute 
of judgment and candor will deny that there are many deep stains on 
the fame of the party to which he belongs, or that the party to which 
he is opposed may justly boast of many illustrious names, of many 
heroic actions, and of many great services rendered to the state. 
The truth is that, though both parties have often seriously erred, 
England could have spared neither. If, in her institutions, freedom 
and order, the advantages arising from innovation and the advantages 
arising from prescription, have been combined to an extent elsewhere 
unknown, we may attribute this happy peculiarity to the strenuous 
conflicts and alternate victories of two rival confederacies of states- 
men, a confederacy zealous for authority and antiquity, and a con- 
federacy zealous for liberty and progress. 

It ought to be remembered that the difference between the two 
great sections of English politicians has always been a difference 
rather of degree than of principle. ‘There were certain limits on the 
right and on the left, which were very rarely overstepped. A few 
enthusiasts on one side were ready to lay all our laws and franchises 
at the feet of our Kings. A few enthusiasts on the other side were 
bent on pursuing, through endless civil troubles, their darling phan- 
tom of a republic. But the great majority of those who fought for 
the crown were averse to despotism; and the great majority of the 
champions of popular rights were averse to anarchy. ‘Twice, in the 
course of the seventeenth century, the two parties suspended their 
dissensions, and united their strength in a common cause. Their 
first coalition restored hereditary monarchy. Their second coalition 
rescued constitutional freedom. 

It is also to be noted that these two parties have never been the 
whole nation, nay, that they have never, taken together, made up a 
majority of the nation. Between them has always been a great mass, 
which has not steadfastly adhered to either, which has sometimes re- 
mained inertly neutral, and which has sometimes oscillated to and 
fro. That mass has more than once passed in afew years from one 


- extreme to the other, and back again. Sometimes it has changed 


sides, merely because it was tired of supporting the same men, some- 
times because it was dismayed by its own excesses, sometimes be- 
cause it had expected impossibilities. and had been disappointed. But 
whenever it has leaned with its whole weight in either direction, that 
weight has, for the time, been irresistible. 

When the rival parties first appeared in a distinct form, they seemed 
to be not unequally matched. On the side of the government was a 
large majority of the nobles, and of those opulent and well descended 
gentlemen to whom nothing was wanting of nobility but the name. 
These, with the dependents whose support they could command, 


66 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


were no small power in the state. On the same side were the great 
body of the clergy, both the Universities, and all those laymen who 
were strongly attached to episcopal government and to the Angli- 
can ritual. ‘These respectable classes found themselves in the com- 
pany of some allies much less decorous than themselves. The Puri- 
tan austerity drove to the King’s faction all who made pleasure their 
business, who affected gallantry, splendour of dress, or taste in the 
higher arts. With these went all who live by amusing the leisure of 
others, from the painter and the comic poet, down to the ropedancer 
and the Merry Andrew. For these artists well knew that they might 
thrive under a superb and luxurious despotism, but must starve 
under the rigid rule of the precisians. In the same interest were the 
Roman Catholics toa man. The Queen, a daughter of France, was 
of their own faith. Her husband was known to be strongly attached 
to her, and not a little in aweof her. Though undoubtedly a Prot-— 
estant on conviction, he regarded the professors of the old religion 
with no ill-will, and would gladly have granted them amuch larger 
toleration than he was disposed to concede to the Presbyterians. If 
the opposition obtained the mastery, it was probable that the san- 
guinary laws enacted against Papists, in the reign of Elizabeth, would 
be severely enforced. The Roman Catholics were therefore induced 
by the strongest motives to espouse the cause of the court. They in 
general acted with a caution which brought on them the reproach of 
cowardice and lukewarmness; but it is probable that, in maintaining 

reat reserve, they consulted the King’s interest as well as their own. 

t was not for his service that they should be conspicuous among his 
friends. 

The main strength of the opposition lay among the small free- 
holders in the country, and among the merchants and shopkeepers of 
the towns. But these were‘headed by a formidable minority of the 
aristocracy, a minority which included the rich and powerful Earls — 
of Northumberland, Bedford, Warwick, Stamford, and Essex, and — 
several other Lords of great wealth and influence. In the same ranks 
was found the whole body of Protestant Nonconformists, and most of 
those members of the Established Church who still adhered to the 
Calvinistic opinions which, forty years before, had been generally 
held by the prelates and clergy. ‘The municipal corporations took, — 
with few exceptions, the same side. In the House of Commons the — 
opposition preponderated, but not very decidedly. ’ 

Neither party wanted strong arguments for the course which itwas — 
disposed to take. The reasoningsof the most enlightened Royalists 
may be summed up thus :—‘‘ It is true that great abuses have existed, 
but they have been redressed. It is true that precious rights have — 
been invaded; but they have been vindicated and surrounded with — 
new securities. The sittings of the Estates of the realm have been. — 
in defiance of all precedent and of the spirit of the constitution, inter 
mitted during eleven years; but it has now been provided that hence 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 67 


forth three years shall never elapse without a Parliament. The Star 
Chamber, the High Commission, the Council of York, oppressed and 
plundered us; but those hateful courts have now ceased to exist. 
The Lord Lieutenant aimed at establishing military despotism; but 
he has answered for his treason with hishead. The Primate tainted 
our worship with Popish rites and punished our scruples with Popish 
cruelty; but he is awaiting in the Tower the judgment of his peers. 
The Lord Keeper sanctioned a plan by which the property of every 
man in England was placed at the mercy of the Crown; but he has 
_ been disgraced, ruined, and compelled to take refuge in a foreign 
Jand. ‘The ministers of tyranny have expiated their crimes) The 
victims of tyranny have been compensated for their sufferings. It 
would therefore be most unwise to persevere further in that course 
which was justifiable and neccssary when we first met after a long 
interval, and found the whole administration one mass of abuses. It 
is time to take heed that we do notso pursue our victory over des- 
potism as to runintoanarchy. It was not in our power to overturn 
_ the bad institutions which lately afflicted our country, without shocks 
which have loosened the foundations of government. Now that those 
institutions have fallen, we must hasten to prop the edifice which it 
was lately our duty to batter Henceforth it will be our wisdom to 
look with jealousy on schemes of innovation, and to guard from en. 
croachment all the prerogatives with which the law has, for the 
public good, armed the sovereign.” 

Such were the views of those men of whom the excellent Falkland 
may be regarded as the leader. It was contended on the other side 
with not less force, by men of not less ability and virtue, that the 
safety which the liberties of the English people enjoyed was rather 
apparent than real, and that the arbitrary projects of the courts would 
be resumed as soon as the vigilance of the Commons was relaxed. 
- True it was,—such was the reasoning of Pym, of Hollis, and of 
Hampden,—that many good laws had been passed: but, if good laws 
had been sufficient to restrain the King, his subjects would have had 
little reason ever to complain of his administration. The recent 
statutes were surely not of more authority than the Great Charter or 
the Petition of Right. Yet neither the Great Charter, hallowed by 
the veneration of four centuries, nor the Petition of Right, sanctioned, 
after mature reflection, and for valuable consideration, by Charles 
himself, had been found effectual for the protection of the people. If 
once the check of fear were withdrawn, if once the spirit of opposi- 
tion were suffered to slumber, all the securities for English freedom 
resolved themselves into a single one, the royal word; and it had been 
proved by a long and severe experience that the royal word could not 
be trusted. 

The two parties were still regarding each other with cautious hos- 
tility, and had not yet measured their strength, when news arrived 
which inflamed the passions and confirmed the opinions of both. The 


68 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


great chieftains of Ulster, who, at the time of the accession of James 


had, after a long struggle, submitted to the royal authority had not 
long brooked the humiliation of dependence. They had conspired 
against the English government, and had been attainted of treason 
Their immense domains had been forfeited to the crown, and had 
soon been peopled by thousands of English and Scotch emigrants 
The new settlers were, in civilisation and intelligence, far superior to 
the native population, and sometimes abused their superiority. The 


animosity produced by difference of race was increased by difference — 


of religion. Under the iron rule of Wentworth, scarcely a murmur 
was heard: but, when that strong pressure was withdrawn, when 
Scotland had set the example of successful resistance, when England 
was distracted by internal quarrels, the smothered rage of the Irish 
broke forth into acts of fearful violence. On a sudden, the aboriginal 
population rose on the colonists A war, to which national and 
theological hatred gave a character of peculiar ferocity, desolated 
Ulster, and spread to the neighbouring provinces. The castle of 


Dublin was scarcely thought secure. Every post brought to London | 


exaggerated accounts of outrages which, without any exaggeration, 
were sufficient to move pity and horror. These evil tidings roused to 
the height the zeal of both the great parties which were marshalled 
against each other at Westminster. The Royalists maintained that 
it was the first duty of every good Englishman and Protestant, at 
such a crisis, to strengthen the hands of the sovereign. To the oppo 
sition 1t seemed that there were now stronger reasons than ever for 
thwarting and restraining him. That the commonwealth was in danger 
was undoubtedly a good reason for giving large powers to a trust 
worthy magistrate: but it was a good reason for taking away powers 
from a magistrate who was at heart a public enemy. To raise a great 
army had always been the King’s first object. A great army must 
now be raised. It was to befeared that, unless some new securities 
were devised, the forces levied for the reduction of Ireland would be 
employed against the liberties of England. Nor was this all A 
horrible suspicion, unjust indeed, but not altogether unnatural, had 
arisen in many minds. The Queen was an avowed Roman Catholic: 
the King was not regarded by the Puritans, whom he had mercilessly 
persecuted, as a sincere Protestant; and so notorious was his duplicity, 
that there was no treachery of which his subjects might not, with 
* some show of reason, believe him capable. It was soon whispered 
that the rebellion of the Roman Catholics of Ulster was part of a vast 
work of darkness which had been planned at Whitehall. 

After some weeks of prelude, the first great parliamentary conflict 
between the parties, which have ever since contended, and are still 
contending, for the government of the nation, took place on the 


twenty-second of November, 1641. It was moved by the opposition, 


that the House of Commons should present to the King a remon- 
strance, enumerating the faults of his administration from the time of 


wl 
Py 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 69 


his accession, and expressing the distrust with which his policy was 
still regarded by his people. That assembly, which afew months be- 
fore had been unanimous in calling for the reform of abuses, was 
now divided into two fierce and eager factions of nearly equal 
strength. After a hot debate of many hours, the remonstrance was 
carried by only eleven votes. 

The result of this struggle was highly favourable to the conserva- 
tive party. It could not be doubted that only some great indiscre- 
tion could prevent them from shortly obtaining the predominance in 
the Lower House. The Upper House was already their own. Noth- 
ing was wanting to ensure their success, but that the King should, in 
all his conduct, show respect for the laws and scrupulous good faith 
towards his subjects. 

His first measures promised well. He had, it seemed, at last dis- 
covered that an entire change of system was necessary, and had wisely 
made up his mind to what could nolonger be avoided. He declared 
his determination to govern in harmony with the Commons, and, for 
that end, to call to his councils men in whose talents and character 
the Commons might place confidence. Nor was the selection ill 
made. Falkland, Hyde, and Colepepper, all three distinguished by 
the part which they had.taken in reforming abuses and in punishing 
evil ministers, were invited to become the confidential advisers of the 
_ Crown, and were solemnly assured by Charles that he would take no 
step in any way affecting the Lower House of Parliament without 
their privity. 
. Had he kept this promise, it cannot be doubted that the reaction 

which was already in progaess would very soon have become quite as 
strong as the most respectable Royalists would have desired. Al- 
ready the violent members of the opposition had begun to despair of 
the fortunes of their party, to tremble for their own safety, and to 
talk of selling their estates and emigrating to America. That the 
fair prospects which had begun to open before the King were sudden, 
ly overcast, that his life was darkened by adversity, and at length 
shortened by violence, is to be attributed to his own faithlessness and 
contempt of law. 

The truth seems to be that he detested both the parties into which 
the House of Commons was divided: nor is this strange; for in both 
those parties the love of liberty and the love of order were mingled, 
though in different proportions. The advisers whom necessity had 
compelled him to call round him were by no means after his own 
heart. They had joined in condemning his tyranny, in abridging his 
power, and in punishing his instruments. They were now indeed 
prepared to defend in a strictly legal way his strictly legal preroga- 
tive; but they would have recoiled with horror from the thought of 
reviving Wentworth’s projects of Thorough. They were, therefore, 
' inthe King’s opinion, traitors, who differed only in the degree of 
their seditious malignity from Pym and Hampden. 


, 


70 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


He accordingly, a few days after he had promised the chiefs of the 
constitutional Royalists that no step of importance should be taken 
without their knowledge, formed a resolution the most momentous of 
his whole life, carefully concealed that resolution from them, and ex- 
ecuted it in a manner which overwhelmed them with shame and dis- 
may. He sent the Attorney General to impeach Pym, Hollis, Hamp- 
den, and other members of the House of Commons of high-treason at 
the bar of the House of Lords. Not content with this flagrant vio- 
lation of the Great Charter and of the uninterrupted practice of cen- 
turies, he went in person, accompanied by armed men, to seize the 
leaders of the opposition within the walls of Parliament: 

The attempt failed. The accused members had left the House a 
short time before Charles entered it. A sudden and violent revulsion 
of feeling, both in the Parliament and in the country, followed. The 
most favourable view that has ever been taken of the King’s conduct 
on this occasion by his most partial advocates is that he had weakly 
suffered himself to be hurried into a gross indiscretion by the evil 
counsels of his wife and of his courtiers. But the general voice loudly 
charged him with far deeper guilt. At the very moment at which 
his subjects, after a long estrangement produced by his maladminis- 
tration, were returning to him with feelings of confidence and affec- 
tion, he had aimed a deadly blow at all their dearest rights, at the 
privileges of Parliament, at the very principle of trial by jury. He 
had shown that he considered opposition to his arbitrary designs as a 
crime to be expiated only by blood. He had broken faith, not only 
with his Great Council and with his people, but with his own ad- 
herents. He had done what, but for an unforeseen accident, would 
probably have produced a bloody conflict round the Speaker’s chair. 
Those who had the chief sway in the Lower House now felt that not 
only their power and popularity, but their lands and their necks, 
were staked on the event of the struggle in which they were en- 
gaged. The flagging zeal of the party opposed to the court revived 
in an instant. During the night which followed the outrage the 
whole city of London was inarms. In a few hours the roads lead- 
ing to the capital were covered with multitudes of yeomen spurring 
hard to Westminster with the badges of the parliamentary cause in 
their hats. In the House of Commons the opposition became at 
once irresistible, and carried, by more than two votes to one, resolu- 
tions of unprecedented violence. Strong bodies of the trainbands, 
regularly relieved, mounted guard round Westminster Hall. The gates 
of the King’s palace were daily besieged by a furious multitude whose 
taunts and execrations were heard even in the presence chamber, and 
who could scarcely be kept out of the royal apartments by the gentle- 
men of the household. Had Charles remained much longer in his 
stormy capital, it is probable that the Commons would have found 
a plea for making him, under outward forms of respect, a state 
prisoner. 


j 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 71 


He quitted London, never to return till the day of a terrible and 
memorable reckoning had arrived. <A negotiation began which oc- 
cupied many months, Accusations and recriminations passed back- 
ward and forward between the contending parties. All accommoda- 
tion had become impossible. The sure punishment which waits on 
- habitual perfidy had at length overtaken the King. It was to no pur 
pose that he now pawned his royal word, and invoked heaven to 
witness the sincerity of his professions. The distrust with which his 
adversaries regarded him was not to be removed by oaths or treaties. 
_ They were convinced that they could be safe only when he was ut- 
terly helpless. Their demand, therefore, was, that he should surren- 
_ der, not only those prerogatives which he had usurped in violation of 
ancient laws and of his own recent promises, but also other preroga- 
tives which the English Kings had always possessed, and continue to 
possess at the present day. No minister'must be appointed, no peer 
created, without the consent of the Houses. Above all, the sovereign 
must resign that supreme military authority which, from time beyond 
all memory, had appertained to the regal office. 

That Charles would comply with such demands while he had any 
means of resistance, was not to be expected. Yet it will be difficult 
to show that the Houses could safely have exacted less. They were 
truly in a most embarrassing position. The great majority of the 
nation was firmly attached to hereditary monarchy. Those who 
held republican opinions were as yet few, and did not venture to 
_ speak out. It was therefore impossible to abolishing kingly govern- 
ment. Yet it was plain that no confidence could be placed in the 
King. It would have been absurd in those who knew, by recent 
proof, that he was bent on destroying them, to content themselves 
with presenting to him another Petition of Right, and receiving from 
him fresh promises similar to those which he had repeatedly made 
and broken. Nothing but the wantof an army had prevented him 
from entirely subverting the old constitution of the realm. It was 
now necessary to levy” a great regular army for the conquest of 
{reland; and it would therefore have been mere insanity to leave 
him in possession of that plenitude of military authority which his 
ancestors had enjoyed. 

When a country is in the situation in which England then was, 
when the kingly office is regarded with love and veneration, but the 
person who fills that office is hated and distrusted, it should seem 
that the course which ought to be taken is obvious. The dignity of 
the office should be preserved: the person should be discarded. Thus 
- our ancestors acted in 1399 and in 1689. Had there been, in 1642, any 
man occupying a position similar to that which Henry of Lancaster 
_ occupied at the time of the deposition of Richard the Second, and 
which William of Orange occupied at the time of the despotism of 
James the Second, it is probable that the Houses would have changed 
the dynasty, and would have made no formal change in the constitu- 


72 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


tion. The new King, called to the throne by their choice, and de- 
pendent on their support, would have been under the necessity of 
governing in conformity with their wishes and opinions. But there 
was no price of the blood royal in the parliamentary party; and, 
though that party contained many men of high rank and many men 
of eminent ability, there was none who towered so conspicuously 
above the rest that he could be proposed as a candidate for the 
crown. As there was to be a King, and as no new King could be 
found, it was necessary to leave the regal title to Charles. Only one 
course, therefore, was left: and that was to disjoin the regal title 
from the regal prerogatives. 

The change which the Houses proposed to make in our institutions, 
though it seems exorbitant, when distinctly set forth and digested 
into articles of capitulation, really amounts to little more than the 
change which, in the next generation, was effected by the Revolution. 
It is true that, at the Revolution, the sovereign was not deprived by 
‘aw of the power of naming his ministers: but it is equally true that, 
since the Revolution, no minister has been able to retain office six 
months in opposition to the sense of the House of Commons. It is 
true that the sovereign still posseses the power of creating peers, and 
the more important power of the sword: but it is equally true that 
in the exercise of these powers the sovereign has, ever since the Revo- 


~ 


lution, been guided by advisers who possess the confidence of the rep-- 


resentatives of the nation. In fact, the leaders of the Roundhead 
party in 1642, and the statesmen who, about half a century later, ef- 
fected the Revolution, had exactly the same object in view. That 
object was to terminate the contest between the Crown and the Par- 
liament, by giving to the Parliament a supreme control over the ex- 
ecutive administration. The statesmen of the Revolution effected 
this indirectly by changing the dynasty. The Roundheads of 1642, 
being unable to change the dynasty, were compelled to take a direct 
course towards their end. F ‘ 
_ We cannot, P owever, wonder that the demands of the opposition, 
importing as *ucy did a complete and formal transfer to the Parlia- 
ment of po“ve.s which had always belonged to the Crown, should 
have shoc’.e tuat great party of which the characteristics are respect 
for cons‘ut.dicnal authority and dread of violent innovation. That 
party hae. recently been in hopes of obtaining by peaceable means the 
ascen‘leacy in the House of Commons; but every such hope had been 
dlightvd. The duplicity of Charles had made his old enemies irrec- 
oncileable, had driven back into the ranks of the disaffected a crowd 
of moderate men who were in the very act of coming over to his 


side, and had so cruelly mortified his best friends that they had fora _ 


time stood aloof in silent shame and resentment. Now, however, the 
constitutional Royalists were forced to make their choice between 
‘wo dangers; and they thought it their duty rather to rally round a 
prince whose past conduct they condemned, and whose word inspired 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 73 


_them with little confidence, than to suffer the regal office to be de- 
graded, and the polity of the realm to be entirely remodelled. With 
such feelings, many men whose virtues and abilities would have done 
honour to any cause, ranged themselves on the side of the King. 

In August, 1642, the sword was at length drawn: and soon, in al- 
most every shire of the kingdom, two hostile factions appeared in 
arms against each other. It is not easy to say which of the contend- 
ing parties was at first the more formidable. ‘The Houses commanded 

_ London and the counties round London, the fleet, the navigation of 
the Thames, and most of the large towns and seaports. They had at 
their disposal almost all the military stores of the kingdom, and were 
able to raise duties, both on goods imported from foreign countries, 
and on some important products of domestic industry. The King 
was ill provided with artillery and ammunition. The taxes which he 
laid on the rural districts occupied by his troops produced, it is prob- 
able, a sum far less than that which the Parliament drew from the 
city of London alone. He relied, indeed, chiefly, for pecuniary aid, 
on the munificence of his opulent adherents. Many of these mortgaged 
their land, pawned their jewels, and broke up their silver chargers 
and christening bowls, in order to assist him. But experience has 
fully proved that the voluntary liberality of individuals, even in times 
of the greatest excitement, is a poor financial resource when compared 
with severe and methodical taxation, which presses on the willing 
and unwilling alike. 

Charles, however, had oneadvantage, which, if he had used it well, 
would have more than compensated for the want of stores and money, 
and which, notwithstanding his mismanagement, gave him, during 
some months, a superiority in the war. His troops at first fought 
much better than those of the Parliament. Both armies, it is true, 
were almost entirely composed of men who had never seen a field of 
battle. Nevertheless, the difference was great. The Parliamentary 
ranks were filled with hirelings whom want and idleness had induced 
to enlist. Hampden’s regiment was regarded as one of the best; and 
even Hampden’s regiment was described by Cromwell as a mere rab- 
ble of tapsters and serving men out of place. The royal army, onthe 
other hand, consisted in great part of gentlemen, high spirited, ardent, 
accustomed to consider dishonour as more terrible than death, ac- 
customed to fencing, to the use of fire arms, to bold riding, and to 
manly and perilous sport, which has been well called the image of 
war. Such gentlemen, mounted on their favourite horses, and com- 
manding little bands composed of their younger brothers, grooms, 
gamekeepers, and huntsmen, were, from the very first day on which 
they took the field, qualified to play their part with credit in a skir- 
mish. ‘The steadiness, the prompt obedience, the mechanical pre- 
cision of movement, which are characteristic of the regular soldier, 
these gallant volunteers never attained. But they were at first op- 

_ posed to enemies as undisciplined as themselves, and far less active, 


4 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


athletic, and daring. For a time, therefore, the Cavaliers were suc- 
cessful in almost every encounter. ~ 

The Houses had also been unfortunate in the choice of a general. 
The rank and wealth of the Earl of Essex made him one of the most 
important members of the parliamentary party. He had borne arms 
on the Continent with credit, and, when the war began, had as high 
a military reputation as any man inthecountry. But it soon appeared 
that he was unfit for the post of Commander in Chief. He had little 
energy and no originality. The methodical tactics which he had 
learned in the war of the Palatinate did not save him from the dis- 
grace of being surprised and baffled by such a Captain as Rupert, 


, 
3 


who could claim no higher fame than that of an enterprising par- — 


tisan. 

Nor were the officers who held the chief commissions under Essex 
qualified to supply what was wanting in him. For this, indeed, the 
Houses are scarcely to be blamed. In a country which had not,~ 
within the memory of the oldest person living, made war on a great 
scale by land, generals of tried skill and valour were not to be found. 
It was necessary, therefore, in the first- instance, to trust untried 
men; and the preference was naturally given to men distinguished 
either by their station, or by the abilities which they had displayed 
in Parliament. In scarcely a single instance, however, was the se- 
lection fortunate. Neither the grandees nor the orators proved good 
soldiers. The Earl of Stamford, one of the greatest nobles of Kng-_ 
land, was routed by the Royalists at Stratton. Nathaniel Fiennes, 
inferior to none of his contemporaries in talents for civil business, 
disgraced himself by the pusillanimous surrender of Bristol. Indeed, 
of all the statesmen who at this juncture accepted high military com- 
mands, Hampden alone appears to have carried into the camp the 
capacity and strength of mind which had made him eminent in poli- 
tics. 

When the war had lasted a year, the advantage was decidedly with 
the Royalists. They were victorious, both in the western and in 
the northern counties. They had wrested Bristol, the second city in 
the kingdom, from the Parliament. They had won several battles, 
and had not sustained a single serious or ignominious defeat. Among 
the Roundheads adversity had begun to produce dissension and dis- 
content. The Parliament was kept in alarm, sometimes by plots, 
and sometimes by riots. It was thought necessary to fortify London 
against the royal army, and to hang some disaffected citizens at their 
own doors. Several of the most distinguished peers who had hith- 
erto remained at Westminster fled to the court at Oxford; nor can it 
be doubted that, if the operations of the Cavaliers had, at this sea- 
son, been directed by a sagacious and powerful mind, Charles would 
soon have marched in triumph to Whitehall. 


4 


f 


But the King suffered the auspicious moment to pass away; and it 


never returned. In August, 1643, he sate down before the city of 


its 


a = 


. HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 6) 


Gloucester. That city was defended by the inhabitants and by the 
garrison, with a determination such as had not, since the commence- 
ment of the war, been shown by the adherents of the Parliament. 
The emulation of London was excited. The trainbands of the City 


- volunteered to march wherever their services might be required. A 


great force was speedily collected, and began to move westward. 
The siege of Gloucester was raised: the Royalists in every part of the 
kingdom were disheartened: the spirit of the parliamentary party re> 
vived: and the apostate Lords, who had lately fied from Westminster 
to Oxford, hastened back from Oxford to Westminster. 

And now a new and alarming class of symptoms began to appear 
in the distempered body politic. There had been, from the first, in 
the parliamentary party, some men whose minds were set on objects 
from which the majority of that party would have shrunk with 
horror. These men were, in religion, Independents. They con- 
ceived that every Christian congregation had, under Christ, supreme 
jurisdiction in things spiritual; that appeals to provincial and na- 
tional synods were scarcely less unscriptural than appeals to the 
Court of Arches, or to the Vatican; and that Popery, Prelacy, and 
Presbyterianism were merely three forms of one great apostasy. In 
politics, the Independents were, to use the phrase of their time, root 
and branch men, or, to use the kindred phrase of our own time, rad- 

icals. Not content with limiting the power of the monarch, they 
were desirous to erect a commonwealth on the ruins of the old Eng- 
lish polity. At first they had been inconsiderable, both in numbers 
and in weight; but before the war had lasted two years they became, 
not indeed the largest, but the most powerful faction in the country. 
Some of the old parliamentary leaders had been removed by death; 
and others had furfeited the public confidence. Pym had been 
borne, with princely honours, to a grave among the Plantagenets. 
Hampden had fallen, as became him, while vainly endeavouring, by 
his heroic example, to inspire his followers with courage to face the 
fiery cavalry of Rupert. Bedford had been untrue to the cause. 
Northumberland was known to be lukewarm. Essex and his lieu- 
tenants had shown little vigour and ability in the conduct of military 
operations. At such a conjuncture it was that the Independent 
pany: ardent, resolute, and uncompromising, began to raise its head, 
oth in the camp and in the House of Commons. 

The soul of that party was Oliver Cromwell. Bred to peaceful oc- 
cupations, he had, at more than forty years of age, accepted a com- 
mission in the parliamentary army. No sooner had he become a 
soldier than he discerned, with the keen glance of genius, what Essex, 
and men like Essex, with all their experience, were unable to per- | 
ceive. He saw precisely where the strength of the Royalists lay, and 
by what means alone that strength could be overpowered. e Saw 
that it was necessary to reconstruct the army of the Parliament. He 
saw also that there were abundant and excellent materials for the pur- 


76 . HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


pose, materials less showy, indeed, but more solid, than those of — 
which the gallant squadrons of the King were composed. It was — 
necessary to look for recruits who were not mere mercenaries, for re- 
cruits of decent station and grave character, fearing God and zealous - 
for public liberty. With such men he filled his own regiment, and, 
while he subjected them to a discipline more rigid than had ever be- 
fore been known in England, he administered to theirintellectual and 
moral nature stimulants of fearful potency. 

The events of the year 1644 fully proved the superiority of his 
abilities. In the south, where Essex held the command, the parlia- 
mentary forces underwent a succession of shameful disasters; but in — 
the north the victory of Marston Moor fully compensated for all that — 
had been lost elsewhere. That victory was not a more serious blow — 
to the Royalists than to the party which had hitherto been dominant 
at Westminster; for it was notorious that the day, disgracefully lost 
by the Presbyterians, had been retrieved by the energy of Cromwell, 
and by the steady valour of the warriors whom he had trained. 

These events produced the Selfdenying Ordinance and the new © 
model of the army. Under decorous pretexts, and with every mark 
of respect, Essex and most of those who had held high posts under 
him were removed; and the conduct of the war was intrusted to very 
different hands. Fairfax, a brave soldier, but of mean understanding 
and irresolute temper, was the nominal Lord General of the forces; 
but Cromwell was their real head. 

Cromwell made haste to organise the whole army on the same prin- 
ciples on which he had organised his own regiment. As soon as this 
process was complete, the event of the war was decided. The Cava- 
liers had now to encounter natural courage equal to their own, enthu- — 
siasm stronger than their own, and discipline such as was utterly 
wanting to them. It soon became a proverb that the soldiers of Fair- 
fax and Cromwell were men of a different breed from the soldiers of 
Essex. At Naseby took place the first great encounter between the 
Royalists and the remodelled army of the Houses. The victory of 
the Roundheads was complete and decisive. It was followed by other 
triumphs in rapid succession. In a few months the authority of the 
Parliament was fully established over the whole kingdom. Charles 
fled to the Scots, and was by them, in a manner which did not much 
exalt their national character, delivered up to his English subjects. 

While the event of the war was still doubtful, the Houses had put 
the Primate to death, had interdicted, within the sphere of their au- — 
thority, the use of the Liturgy, and had required all men to subscribe — 
that renowned instrument known by the name of the Solemn League 
and Covenant. Covenanting work, as it was called, went on fast. 
Hundreds of thousands affixed their names to the rolls, and, with © 
hands lifted up towards heaven, swore to endeavour, without respect — 
of persons, the extirpation of Popery and Prelacy, heresy and schism, — 
and to bring to public trial and condign punishment all who should — 


ae 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 77 


hinder the reformation of religion. When the struggle was over, the 
work of innovation and revenge was pushed on with increased ardour, 


The ecclesiastical polity of the kingdom was remodelled. Most of 
the old clergy were ejected from their benefices, Fines, often of 
ruinous amount, were laid on the Royalists, already impoverished by 
sarge aids furnished to the King. Many estates were confiscated. 
Many proscribed Cavaliers found it expedient to purchase, at an 
enormous cost, the protection of eminent members of the victorious 


party. Large domains, belonging to the crown, to the bishops, and 


to the chapters, were seized, and either granted away or put up to 
auction. In consequence of these spoliations, a great part of the soil 


of England was at onca&offered for sale. As money was scarce, as 


the market was glutted, as the title was insecure, and as the awe in- 


‘spired by powerful bidders prevented free competition, the prices 


were often merely nominal. Thus many old and honourable families 
disappeared and were heard of no more; and many new men rose 
rapidly to affluence. 

ut, while the Houses were employing their authority thus, it 
suddenly passed out of their hands. It had been obtained by calling 
into existence a power which could not be controlled. In the sum- 
mer of 1647, about twelve months after the last fortress of the Cava- 
liers had submitted to the Parliament, the Parliament was compelled 


to submit to its own soldiers. 


Thirteen years followed, during which England was, under various 
names and forms, really governed by the sword. Never before that 
time, or since that time, was the civil power in our country subjected 
to military dictation. 

The army which now’ became supreme in the state was an army 
very different from any that has since been seen among us. At 
present the pay of the common soldier is not such as can seduce any 
but the humblest class of English labourers from their calling. A 
barrier almost impassable separates him from the commissioned 


Officer. The great majority of those who rise high in the service rise 


by purchase. So numerous and extensive are the remote dependen- 
cies of England, that every man who enlists in the line must expect 
to pass many years in exile, and some years in climates unfavourable 
to the health and vigour of the European race. The army of the 
Long Parliament was raised for home service. The pay of the pri- 
vate soldier was much above the wages earned by the great body of 
the people; and, if he distinguished himself by intelligence and 
courage, he might hope to attain high commands. The ranks were 
accordingly composed of persons superior in station and education 
to the multitude. These persons, sober, moral, diligent, and accus- 
tomed to reflect, had been induced to take up arms, not by the pres- 
sure of want, not by the love of novelty and license, not by the arts 
of recruiting officers, but by religious and political zeal, mingled with 
the desire of distinction and promotion. The boast of the soldiers, 


73 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


as we find it recorded in their solemn resolutions, was that they had 
not been forced into the service, nor had enlisted chiefly for the sake 
of lucre, that they were no janissaries, but freeborn Englishmen, who 
had, of their own accord, put their lives in jeopardy for the liberties 
and religion of England, and whose right and duty it was to watch 
over the welfare of the nation which they had saved. 

A force thus composed might, without injury to its efficiency, be 
indulged in some liberties which, if allowed to any other troops, 
would have proved subversive of all discipline. In general, soldiers 
who should form themselves into political clubs, elect delegates, and 
pass resolutions on high questions of state, would soon break loose 
from all control, would cease to form an army, and would become 
the worst and most dangerous of mobs. Nor would it be safe, in our 
time, to tolerate in any regiment religious meetings, at which a cor- 
poral versed in Scripture should lead the devotions of his less gifted 
colonel, and admonish a backsliding major. But such was the 
intelligence, the gravity, and the selfecommand of the warriors whom 
Cromwell had trained, that in their camp a political organisation.and 
a religious organisation could exist without destroying military 
organisation. ‘The same men, who, off duty, were noted as dema- 
gogues and field preachers, were distinguished by steadiness, by the 
spirit of order, and by prompt obedience on watch, on drill, and on 
the field of battle. 

In war this strange force was irresistible. The stubborn courage 
characteristic of the English people was, by the system of Cromwell, 
at once regulated and stimulated. Other leaders have maintained 
orders as strict. Other leaders have inspired their followers with 
zeal as ardent. But in his camp alone the most rigid discipline was 
found in company with the fiercest enthusiasm. His troops moved 
to victory with the precision of machines, while burning with the 
wildest fanaticism of Crusaders. From the time when the army 
was remodelled to the time when it was disbanded, it never found, 
either in the British islands or on the Continent, an enemy who could 
stand its onset. In England, Scotland, Ireland, Flanders, the Puritan 
warriors, often surrounded by difficulties, sometimes contending 
against threefold odds, not only never failed to conquer, but never 
failed to destroy and break in pieces whatever force was opposed to 
them. They at length came to regard the day of battle as a day of 
certain triumph, and marched against the most renowned battalions 
of Europe with disdainful confidence. Turenne was startled by the 
shout of stern exultation with which his English allies advanced to 
the combat, and expressed the delight of a true soldier, when he 
learned that it was ever the fashion of Cromwell’s pikemen to rejoice 
greatly when they beheld the enemy; and the banished Cavaliers felt 
an emotion of national pride, when they saw a brigade of their 
countrymen, outnumbered by foes and abandoned by friends, drive 
before it in headlong rout the finest infantry of Spain, and force a 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 99 


passage into a counterscarp which hgd just been pronounced im- 
pregnable by the ablest of the Marshals of France. 

But that which chiefly distinguished the army of Cromwell from 
other armies was the austere morality and the fear of God which 
pervaded all ranks. It is acknowledged by the most zealous Royal- 
ists that, in that singular camp, no oath was heard, no drunkenness 
or gambling was seen, and that, during the long dominion of the 
-soldiery, the property of the peaceable citizen and the honour of woman 
were held sacred. If outrages were committed, they were outrages 
of a very different kind from those of which a victorious army is 
generally guilty. No servant girl complained of the rough gallantry 
of the redcoats. Notan ounce of plate was taken from the shops of the 
goldsmiths. Buta Pelagian sermon, ora window on which the Virgin 
and Child were painted, produced in the Puritan ranks an excitement 
which it required the utmost exertions of the officers to quell. One 
of Cromwell’s chief difficulties was to restrain his musketeers and 
dragoons from invading by main force the pulpits of ministers whose 
discourses, to use the language of that time, were not savoury; and 
too many of our cathedrals still bear the marks of the hatred with 
which those stern spirits regarded evcry vestige of Popery. 

‘To keep down the English people was no light task even for that 
army. No sooner was the first pressure of military tyranny felt, than 
the nation, unbroken to such servitude, began to struggle fiercely. 
Insurrections broke out even in those counties which, during the 
recent war, had been the most submissive to the Parliament. In- 
deed, the Parliament itself abhorred its old defenders more than its 
old enemies, and was desirous to come to terms of accommodation 
with Charles at the expense of the troops. In Scotland at the same 
time, a coalition was formed between the Royalists and a large body 
of Presbyterians who regarded the doctrines of the Independents with 
 detestation. Atlength the storm burst. There were risings in Nor- 
folk, Suffolk, Essex, Kent, Wales. The fleet in the Thames sudden- 
ly hoisted the royal colours, stood out to sea, and menaced the southern 
coast. A great Scottish force crossed the frontier and advanced into 
Lancashire. It might well be suspected that these movements were 
contemplated with secret complacency by a majority both of the 
_ Lords and of the Commons. 

But the yoke of the army was not to be so shaken off. While 
Fairfax suppressed the risings in the neighbourhood of the capital, 
Oliver routed the Welsh insurgents, and, leaving their castles in 
Tuins, marched against the Scots. His troops were few, when com- 
pared with the invaders; but he was little in the habit of counting his 
enemies. The Scottish army was utterly destroyed. A change in . 
the Scottish government followed. An administration, hostile to the 
King, was formed at Edinburgh; and Cromwell, more than ever the 
darling of his soldiers,returned in triumph to London, 

And now a design, to which, at the commencement of the civil 


80 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


war, no man would have dared to allude, and which was not less 
inconsistent with the Solemn League and Covenant than with the old 
law of England, began to take a distinct form, The austere warriors 
who ruled the nation had, during some months, meditated a fearful 
vengeance on the captive King. When and how the scheme originated ; 
whether it spread from the general to the ranks, or from the ranks to 
the general; whether it is to be ascribed to policy using fanaticism as 
a tool, or to fanaticism bearing down policy with headlong impulse, 
are questions which, even at this day, cannot be answered with per- 
fect confidence. It seems, however, on the whole, probable that he 
who seemed to lead was really forced to follow, and that, on this 
occasion, aS on another great occasion a few years later, he sacrified 
his own judgment and his own inclinations to the wishes of the army. 
For the power which he had called into existence was a power which 
even he could not always control; and, that he might ordinarily com- 
mand, it was necessary that he should sometimes obey. He publicly 
protested that he was no mover in the matter, that the first steps had 
been taken without his privity, that he could not advise the Parlia- 
ment to strike the blow, but that he submitted his own feelings to the 
force of circumstances which seemed to him to indicate the purposes 
of Providence. It has been the fashion to consider these professions 
as instances of the hypocrisy which is vulgarly imputed to him. But 
even those who pronounce him a hypocrite will scarcely venture to 
call him a fool. They are therefore bound to show that he had some 
purpose to serve by secretly stimulating the army to take that course 
which he did not venture openly to recommend. It would be absurd 
to suppose that he who was never by his respectable enemies repre- 
sented as wantonly cruel or implacably vindictive, would have taken 
the most important step of his life under the influence of mere 
malevolence. He was far too wise a man not to know, when he con- 
sented to shed that august blood, that he was doing a deed which was 
inexpiable, and which would move the grief and horror, not only of 
the Royalists, but of nine tenths of those who had stood by the 
Parliament. Whatever visions may have deluded others, he was 
assuredly dreaming neither of a republic on the antique pattern, nor of 
the millennial reign of the Saints. If he already aspired to be himself 
the founder of a new dynasty, it was plain that Charles the First was 
a less formidable competitor than Charles the Second would be. At 
the moment of the death of Charles the First the loyalty of every 
Cavalier would be transferred, unimpaired, to Charles the Second. 
Charles the First was a captive: Charles the Second would be at liberty. 
Charles the First was an object of suspicion and dislike to a large 
proportion of those who yet shuddered at the thought of slaying him: 


Charles the Second would excite all the interest which belongs to — 


distressed youth and innocence. It is impossible to believe that con- 


siderations so obvious, and so important, escaped the most profound ~ 
politician of that age. The truth is that Cromwell had, at one time, — 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 81 


meant to mediate between the throne and the Parliament, and to re- 
organise the distracted State by the power of the sword, under the 
sanction of the royal name. In this design he persisted till he 
_ was compelled to abandon it by the refractory temper of the soldiers, 
and by the incurable duplicity of the King. A party in the camp 
began to clamour for the head of the traitor, who was for treating 
with Agag. Conspiracies were formed. Threats of impeachment 
were loudly uttered. A mutiny broke out, which all the vigour and 
resolution of Oliver could hardly quell. And though, by a judicious 
mixture of severity and kindness, he succeeded in restoring order, he 
saw that it would be in the highest degree difficult and perilous to con- 
tend against the rage of warriors, who regarded the fallen tyrant as 
their foe, and as the foe of their God. At the same time it became 
more evident than ever that the King could not be trusted. The vices 
of Charles had grown upon him. They were, indeed, vices which 
difficulties and perplexities generally bring out in the strongest light. 
Cunning is the natural defence of the weak. A prince, therefore, 
-who is habitually a deceiver when at the height of power, is not likely 
to learn frankness in the midst of embarrassments and distresses. 
Charles was not only a most uncrupulous but a most unlucky dis- 
-sembler. There never was a politician to whom so many frauds and 
falsehoods were brought home by undeniable evidence. He publicly 
recognised the Houses of Westminster as a legal Parliament, and, 
at the same time, made a private minute in council declaring the 
recognition null. He publicly disclaimed all thought of calling in 
foreign aid against his people: he privately solicited aid from France, 
from Denmark, and from Lorraine. He publicly denied that he 
_ employed Papists: at the same time he privately sent to his generals 
directions to employ every Papist that would serve. He publicly 
took the sacrament at Oxford, as a pledge that he never would even 
-connive at Popery. He privately assured his wife, that he intended 
to tolerate Popery in England; and he authorised Lord Glamorgan to 
promise that Popery should be established in Ireland. Then he 
attempted to clear himself at his agent’s expense. Glamorgan re- 
ceived, in the Royal handwriting, reprimands intended to be read by 
others, and eulogies which were to be seen only by himself. To such 
an extent, indeed, had insincerity now tainted the King’s whole 
nature, that his most devoted friends could not refrain from complain- 
ing to each other, with bitter grief and shame, of his crooked politics. 
His defeats, they said, gave them less pain than his intrigues. Since 
he had been a prisoner, there was no section of the victorious part 
which had not been the object both of his flatteries and of his machi- 
nations; but never was he more unfortunate than when he attempted 
at once to cajole and to undermine Cromwell. 

Cromwell had to determine whether he would put to hazard the 
attachment of his party, the attachment of his army, his own great- 
‘ness, nay his own life, in an attempt which would probably have 


99 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


been vain, to save a prince whom no engagement could bind. With 
many struggles and misgivings, and probably not without many 
prayers, the decision was made. Charles was left to his fate. The 
military saints resolved that, in defiance of the old laws of the realm, 
and of the almost universal sentiment of the nation, the King should 
expiate his crimes with his blood. He for a time expected a death 
like that of his unhappy predecessors, Edward the Second and Richard 
the Second. But he was in no danger of such treason. Those who 
had him in their gripe were not midnight stabbers. What they did 
they did in order that it might be a spectacle to heaven and earth, and 
that it might be held in everlasting remembrance. They enjoyed 
keenly the very scandal which they gave. That the ancient consti- 
tution and the public opinion of England were directly opposed to 
regicide made regicide seem strangely fascinating to a party bent on 
effecting a complete political and social revolution. In order to ac- 


complish their purpose, it was necessary that they should first break _ 


in pieces every part of the machinery of the government; and this 
necessity was rather agreeable than painful to them. The Commons 
passed a vote tending to accommodation with the King. The soldiers 
excluded the majority by force. The Lords unanimously rejected the 


proposition that the King should be brought to trial. Their house | 


was instantly closed. No court, known to the law, would take on 
itself the oflice of judging the fountain of justice. A revolutionary 
tribunal was created. That tribunal pronounced Charles a tyrant, a 
traitor, a murderer, and a public enemy; and his head was severed 
from his shoulders, before thousands of spectators, in front of the 
banqueting hall of his own palace. 

In no long time it became manifest that those political and religious 
zealots, to whom this deed is to be ascribed, had committed, not only 
a crime, but an error. They had given to a prince, hitherto known 
to his people chiefly by his faults, an opportunity of displaying, on a 
great theatre, before the eyes of all nations and all ages, some qualities 
which irresistibly call forth the admiration and love of mankind, the 
high spirit of a gallant gentleman, the patience and meekness of a 
penitent Christian. Nay, they had so contrived their revenge that 
the very man whose life had been a series of attacks on the liberties 
of England now seemed to die a martyr in the cause of those liberties. 
No demagogue ever produced such an impression on the public mind 
as the captive King, who, retaining in that extremity all his regal 
dignity, and confronting death with dauntless courage, gave utterance 
to the feelings of his oppressed people, manfully refused to plead 
before a court unknown to the law, appealed from military violence 
to the principles of the constitution, asked by what right the House of 
Commons had been purged of its most respectable members and the 
House of Lords deprived of its legislative functions, and told his 
weeping hearers that he was defending, not only his own cause, but 
theirs. His long misgovernment, his innumerable perfidies, were 


4 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 88 


forgotten. His memory was, in the minds of the great majority of 
his subjects, associated with those free institutions which he had, 
during many years, laboured to destroy: for those free institutions had 

erished with him, and, amidst the mournful silence of a community 

ept down by arms, had been defended by his voice alone. From 
that day began a reaction in favour of monarchy and of the exiled 
house, a reaction which never ceased till the throne had again been 
set up in all its old dignity. 

At first, however, the slayers of the King seemed to have derived 
new energy from that sacrament of blood by which they had bound 
themselves closely together, and separated themselves for ever from 
the great body of their countrymen. England was declared a com- 
monwealth. The House of Commons, reduced to a small number of 
members, was nominally the supreme power in the state. In fact, 
the army and its great chief governed everything. Oliver had made 
his choice. He had kept the hearts of his soldiers, and had broken 
with almost every other class of his fellow citizens. Beyond the 
limits of his camps and fortresses he could scarcely be said to have a 
party. Those elements of force which, when the civil war broke out, 
had appeared arrayed against each other, were combined against 


him, all the Cavaliers, the great majority of the Roundheads, the 


Anglican Church, the Presbyterian Church, the Roman Catholic 
Church, England, Scotland, Ireland. Yet such was his genius and 
resolution that he was able to overpower and crush everything that 
crossed his path, to make himself more absolute master of his coun- 
try than any of her legitimate Kings had been, and to make his coun- 
try more dreaded and respected than she had been during many gen- 
erations under the rule of her legitimate Kings. 

England had already ceased to struggle. But the two other king- 
doms which had been governed by the Stuarts were hostile to the new 
republic. The Independent party was equally odious to the Roman 
Catholics of Ireland and to the Presbyterians of Scotland. Both those 
countries, lately in rebellion against Charles the First, now acknowl- 
edged the authority of Charles the Second. 

But everything yielded to the vigour and ability of Cromwell. In 
a few months he subjugated Ireland, as Ireland had never been sub- 
jugated during the five centuries of slaughter which had elapsed since 
the landing of the first Norman settlers. He resolved to put an end 
to that conflict of races and religions which had so long distracted the 


island, by making the English and Protestant population decidedly 


predominant. For this end he gave the rein to the fierce enthusiasm 
of his followers, waged war resembling that which Israel waged on 
the Canaanites, smote the idolaters with the edge of the sword, so 
that great cities were left without inhabitants, drove many thousands 
to the Continent, shipped off many thousands to the West Indies, and 
supplied the void thus made by pouring in numerous colonists, of 
Saxon blood, and of Calvinistic faith. Strange to say, under that 


84 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


iron rule, the conquered country began to wear an outward face of 
prosperity. Districts, which had recently been as wild as those where 
the first white settlers of Connecticut were contending with the red 
men, were in a few years transformed into the likeness of Kent and 
Norfork. New buildings, roads, and plantations were everywhere 
seen. The rent of estates rose fast; and soon the English landowners 
began to complain that they were met in every market by the prod- 
ucts of Ireland, and to clamour for protecting laws. 


From Ireland the victorious chief, who was now in name, as he had. 


long been in reality, Lord General of the armies of the Common- 
wealth, turned to Scotland. The Young King was there. He had 
consented to profess himself a Presbyterian, and to subscribe the 
Covenant; and, in return for these concessions, the austere Puritans 
who bore sway at Edinburgh had permitted him to assume the crown, 
and to hold, under their inspection and control, a solemn and melan- 
choly court. This mock royalty was of short duration. In two great 
battles Cromwell annihilated the military force of Scotland. Charles 
fled for his life, and, with extreme difficulty, escaped the fate of his 
father. The ancient kingdom of the Stuarts was reduced, for the 
first time, to profound submission. Of that independence, so man- 
fully defended against the mightiest and ablest of the Plantagenets, 
no vestige was left. The English Parliament made laws for Scotland. 
English judges held assizes in Scotland. Even that stubborn Church, 
which has held its own against so many governments, scarce dared to 
utter an audible murmur. 

Thus far there had been at least the semblance of harmony between 
the warriors who had subjugated Ireland and Scotland and the poli- 
ticians who sate at Westminster: but the alliance which had been 
cemented by danger was dissolved by victory. ‘The Parliament for- 
got that it was but the creature of the army. ‘The army was less 
disposed than ever to submit to the dictation of the Parliament. In- 
deed the few members who made up what was contemptuously called 
the Rump of the House of Commons had no more claim than the 
military chiefs to be esteemed the representatives of the nation. The 
dispute was soon brought to a decisive issue. Cromwell filled the 
House with armed men. The Speaker was pulled out of his chair, 
the mace taken from the table, the room cleared, and the door 
locked. The nation, which loved neither of the contending parties, 
but which was forced, in its own despite, to respect the capacity and 
resolution of the General, looked on with patience, if not with com- 
placency. 

King, Lords, and Commons, had now in turn been vanquished and 
destroyed; and Cromwell seemed to be left the sole heir of the powers 
of all three. Yet were certain limitations still imposed on him by 
the very army to which he owed his immense authority. That sin- 
gular body of men was, for the most part, composed of zealous re- 
publicans, In the act of enslaving their country, they had deceived 


>. 
ee, a ee 


‘oF 


\ 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 85 


themselves into the belief that they were emancipating her. The 
book which they most venerated furnished them with a precedent 
which was frequently in their mouths. It was true that the ignorant 
and ungrateful nation murmured against its deliverers. ven so had 
another chosen nation murmuréd against the leader who brought it, 
by painful and dreary paths, from the house of bondage to the land 
flowing with milk and honey. Yet had that leader rescued his 
brethren in spite of themselves; nor had he shrunk from making 
terrible examples of those who contemned the proffered freedom, 
and pined for the fleshpots, the taskmasters and the idolatries of 
Egypt. The object of the warlike saints who surrounded Cromwell 
was the settlement of a free and pious commonwealth. For that 


end they were ready to employ, without scruple, any means, how- 


ever violent and lawless. It was not impossible, therefore, to estab- 
lish by their aid a dictatorship such as no King had even exercised: 
but it was probable that their aid would be at once withdrawn from 
a ruler who, even under strict constitutional restraints, should ven- 
ture to assume the kingly name and dignity. 

The sentiments of Cromwell were widely different. He was not 
what he had been; nor would it be just to consider the change which 
his views had undergone as the effect merely of selfish ambition. 
He had, when he came up to the Long Parliament, brought with him 
from his rural retreat little knowledge of books, no experience of 
great affairs, and a temper galled by the long tyranny of the govern- 
ment and of the hierarchy. He had, during the thirteen years which 
followed, gone through a political education of no common kind. 
He had been a chief actor in a succession of revolutions. He had 
been long the soul, and at last the head, of a party. He had 
commanded armies, won battles, negotiated treaties, subdued, paci- 
fied, and regulated kingdoms. It would have been strange indeed if 
his notions had been still the same as in the days when his mind was 
principally occupied by his fields and his religion, and when the 

eatest events which diversified the course of his life were a cattle 

air or a prayer meeting at Huntingdon. He saw that some schemes 
of innovation for which he had once been zealous, whether good or 
bad in themselves, were opposed to the general feeling of the country, 


and that, if he persevered in those schemes, he had nothing before 


him but constant troubles, which must be suppressed by the constant 
use of the sword. He therefore wished to restore, in all essentials, 
that ancient constitution which the majority of the people had al- 
ways loved, and for which they now pined. The course afterwards 
taken by Monk was not open to Cromwell, The memory of one 
terrible day separated the great regicide for ever from the House of 
Stuart. What remained was that he should mount the ancient Eng- 
lish throne, and reign according to the ancient English polity. If 
he could effect this, he might hope that the wounds of the lacerated 
State would heal fast, Great numbers of honest and quiet men 


86 - HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


would speedily rally round him. Those Royalists whose attachment — 


was rather to institutions than to persons, to the kingly office than to 
King Charles the First or King Charles the Seeond, would soon kiss 
the hand of King Oliver. The peers, who now remained sullenly at 
their country houses, and refused to take any part in public affairs, 


would, when summoned to their House by the writ of a King in pos- 


session, gladly resume their ancient functions. | Northumberland 
and Bedford, Manchester and Pembroke, would be proud to bear 
the crown and the spurs, the sceptre and the globe, before the restorer 
of aristocracy. A sentiment of loyalty would gradually bind the 
people to the new dynasty; and, on the decease of the founder of 
that dynasty, the royal dignity might descend with general acqui- 
escence to his posterity. 

The ablest Royalists were of opinion that these views were correct, 
and that, if Cromwell had been permitted to follow his own judg- 
ment, the exiled line would never have been restored. But his plan 


was directly opposed to the feelings of the only class which he dared ~ 
not offend. The name of King was hateful to the soldiers. Some 


of them were indeed unwilling to see the administration in the hands 


of any single person. ‘The great majority, however, were disposed ~ 


to support their general, as elective first magistrate of a common- 
wealth, against all factions which might resist his authority: but 
they would not consent that he should assume the regal title, or that 
the dignity, which was the just reward of his personal merit, should 
be declared hereditary in his family. All that was left to him was to 
give to the new republic a constitution as like the constitution of the 


old monarchy as the army would bear. That his elevation to power. . 


might not seem to be merely his own act, he convoked a council, com- 
posed partly of persons on whose support he could depend, and partly 
of persons whose opposition he might safely defy. This assembly, 
which he called a Parliament, and which the populace nicknamed, 


from one of the most conspicuous members, Barebones’s Parliament, ~~ 


after exposing itself during a short time to the public contempt, 
surrendered back to the General the powers which it had received 
from him, and left him at liberty to frame a plan of government. 

His plan bore, from the first, a considerable resemblance to the old 
English constitution: but, in a few years, he thought it safe to pro- 
ceed further, and to restore almost every part of the ancient system 
under new names and forms. The title of King was not revived; 
but the kingly prerogatives were intrusted to a Lord High Protector. 


The sovereign was called not His Majesty, but His Highness. He-~ ~ 


was not crowned and anointed in Westminster Abbey, but was 
solemnly enthroned, girt with a sword of state, clad in a robe of 
purple, and presented with a rich Bible, in Westminster Hall. His 
office was not declared hereditary: but he was permitted to name 
his successor; and none could doubt that he would name his son. 

A House of Commons was a necessary part of the new polity. In 


é 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 87 


’ constituting this body, the Protector showed a wisdom and a public 


\ 


spirit which were not duly appreciated by his contemporaries. The 
vices of the old representative system, though by no means so serious 
as they afterwards became, had already been remarked by farsighted 
men. Cromwell reformed that system on the same principles on 
which Mr. Pitt, a hundred and thirty years later, attempted to re- 
form it, and on which it was at length reformed.in our own times. 
Small boroughs were disfranchised even more unsparingly than in 
1832; and thenumber of county members was greatly increased. Very 
few unrepresented towns had yet grown into importance. Of those 


' towns the most considerable were Manchester, Leeds, and Halifax. 


Representatives were given to allthree. Anaddition was made to the 
number of the members for the capital. The elective franchise was 
placed on such a footing that every man of substance, whether pos- 


sessed of freehold estates in land or not, had a vote for the county in 


which he resided. A few Scotchmen and a few of the English colo- 
nists settled in Ireland were summoned to the assembly which was 
to legislate, at Westminster, for every part of the British isles. 

To create a House of Lords was a less easy task. Democracy does 
not require the support of prescription. Monarchy has often stood - 
without that support. But a patrician order is the work of time. 
Oliver found already existing a nobility, opulent, highly considered, 
and as popular with the commonalty as any nobility has ever been. 
Had he, as King of England, commanded the peers to meet him in 
Parliament according to the old usage of the realm, many of them 
would undoubtedly have obeyed the call. This he could not do; 
and it was to no purpose that. he offered to the chiefs of illustrious 
families seats in his new senate. They conceived that they could 
not accept a nomination to an upstart assembly without renouncing 
their birthright and betraying their order. The Protector was, 
therefore, under the necessity of filling his Upper House with new 
men who, during the late stirring times, had made themselves con- 
spicuous. This was the least happy of his contrivances, and dis- 
pleased all parties. The Levellers were angry with him for instituting 
a privileged class. The multitude, which felt respect and fondness 
for the great historical names of the land, laughed without restraint 


at a House of Lords, in which lucky draymen and shoemakers 


were seated, to which few of the old nobles were invited, and 
from which almost all those old nobles who were invited turned dis- 
dainfully away. 

How Oliver’s Parliaments were constituted, however, was practi- 


cally of little moment: for he possessed the means of conducting the 


administration without their support, and in defiance of their oppo- 


sition. His wish seems to have been to govern constitutionally, and 


_ to substitute the empire of the Jaws for that of the sword. But he 


soon found that, hated as he was, both by Royalists and Presbyte- 
rians, he could be safe only by being absolute, The first House of 


88 : HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


Commons which the people elected by his command, questioned his 
authority, and was dissolved without having passed a single act. 
His second House of Commons, though it recognised him as Pro- 
tector, and would gladly have made him King, obstinately refused 
to acknowledge his new Lords. He had no course left but to dis- 
solve the Parliament. ‘‘ God,” he exclaimed, at parting, ‘‘be judge 
between you and me!” : 

Yet was the energy of the Protector’s administration in nowise re- 
laxed by these dissensions. Those soldiers who would not suffer 
him to assume the kingly title stood by him when he ventured on’ 
acts of power, as high as any English King has ever attempted. The 
government, therefore, though in form a republic, was in truth a 


_ 


despotism, moderated only by the wisdom, the sobriety, and the — 


magnanimity of the despot. The country was divided into military 
districts. Those districts were placed under the command of Major 
Generals. Every insurrectionary movement was promptly put down 
and punished. The fear inspired by the power of the sword, in so 
strong, steady, and expert a hand, quelled the spirit both of Cavaliers 
and Levellers. The loyal gentry declared that they were still as 
ready as ever to risk their lives for the old government and the old 
dynasty, if there were the slightest hope of success: but to rush, at 
the head of their serving men and tenants, on the pikes of brigades 
victorious in a hundred battles and sieges, would be a frantic waste 
of innocent and honourable blood. Both Royalists.and Republicans, 
having no hope in open resistance, began to revolve dark schemes of 
assassination: but the Protector’s intelligence was good: his vigi- 
lance was unremitting; and, whenever he moved beyond the walls 
of his palace, the drawn swords and cuirasses of his trusty body- 
guards encompassed him thick on every side. 5 

Had he been a cruel, licentious, and rapacious prince, the nation 
might have found courage in despair, and might have made a con- 


vulsive effort to free itself from military domination. But the 


grievances which the country suffered, though such as excited seri- 
ous discontent, were by no means such as impel great masses of men 
to stake their lives, their fortunes, and the welfare of their families 
against fearful odds. The taxation, though heavier than it had been 
under the Stuarts, was not heavy when compared with that of the 
neighbouring states and with the resources of England. Property 
was secure. Even the Cavalier, who refrained from giving disturb- 
ance to the new settlement, enjoyed in peace whatever the civil 
troubles had left him. The laws were violated only in cases where 
the safety of the Protector’s person and government was concerned. 
Justice was administered between man and man with an exactness 
and purity not before known. Under no English government since 
the Reformation, had there been so little religious persecution. The 
unfortunate Roman Catholics, indeed, were held to be scarcely 
Within the pale of Christian charity. But the clergy of the fallen 


; 


; 


am 
: 


- 
oe 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 89 


Anglican Church were suffered to celebrate their worship on con- 
dition that they would abstain from preaching about politics. Even 
the Jews, whose public worship had, ever since the thirteenth cen- 
tury, been interdicted, were, in spite of the strong opposition of 
jealous traders and fanatical theologians, permitted to build a syna- 


-gogue in London. 


he Protector’s foreign policy at the same time extorted the un- 
gracious approbation of those who most detested him. The Cavaliers 
could searcely refrain from wishing that one who had done so much 
to raise the fame of the nation had been a legitimate King; and the 
Republicans were forced to own that the tyrant suffered none but 
himself to wrong his country, and that, if he had robbed her of 
liberty, he had at least given her glory in exchange. After half a 
century during which England had been of scarcely more weight in 
European politics than Venice or Saxony, she at once became the 
most formidable power in the world, dictated terms of peace to the 
United Provinces, avenged the common injuries of Christendom on 
the pirates of Barbary, vanquished the Spaniards by land and sea, 
seized one of the finest West Indian islands, and acquired on the 
Flemish coast a fortress which consoled the national pride for the 
loss of Calais. She was supreme on the ocean. She was the head, 
of the Protestant interest. All the reformed Churches scattered over 
Roman Catholic kingdoms acknowledged Cromwell as their guardian. 
The Huguenots of Languedoc, the shepherds who, in the hamlets of 
the Alps, professed a Fe anti older than that of Augsburg, 
were secured from oppression by the mere terror of his great name. 
The Pope himself was forced to preach humanity and moderation to 
Popish princes. For a voice which seldom threatened in vain had 
declared that, unless favour were shown to the people of God, the 
English guns slyould be heard in the Castle of Saint Angelo. In 


‘truth, there was nothing which Cromwell had, for his own sake and 


that of his family, so much reason to desire as a general religious war 


_inEurope. In suchawarhe must have been the captain of the Protes- 


tantarmies. The heart of England would have been with him. His 
victories would have been hailed with an unanimous enthusiasm un- 
known in the country since the rout of the Armada, and would have 
effaced the stain which one act, condemned by the general voice of 


the nation, has left on his splendid fame. Unhappily for him he 


had no opportunity of displaying his admirable military talents, ex- 
enone the inhabitants of the British isles. 

hile he lived his power stood firm, an object of mingled aver- 
sion, admiration, and dread to his subjects. Few indeed loved his 
government; but those who hated it most hated it less than they 


feared it. Had it been a worse government, it might perhaps have 


been overthrown in spite of all its strength. Had it been a weaker 
overnment, it would certainly have been overthrown in spite of all 


‘its merits. But it had moderation enough to abstain from those 


90 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


oppressions which drive men mad; and it had a force and energy | 


which none but men driven mad by oppression would venture to en- 
counter. 


It has often been affirmed, but with little reason, that Oliver died — 
at a time fortunate for his renown, and that, if his life had been pro- — 


longed, it would probably have closed amidst disgraces and disasters. 
It:is certain that he was, to the last, honoured by his soldiers, obeyed 
by the whole population of the British islands, and dreaded by all 
foreign powers, that he was laid among the ancient sovereigns of 


England with funeral pomp such as London had never before seen, — 


and that he was succeeded by his son Richard as quietly as any King 
had ever been succeeded by any Prince of Wales. 


During five months, the administration of Richard Cromwell — 


went on so tranquilly and regularly that all Europe believed him to 
be firmly established on the chair ‘of state. In truth his situation 
was in some respects much more advantageous than that. of his 


father. The young man had made no enemy. His hands were un- — 


stained by civil blood. The Cavaliers themselves allowed him to be 


an honest, good-natured gentleman. The Presbyterian party, power- “ 


ful both in numbers and in wealth, had been at deadly feud with the 


late Protector, but was disposed to regard the present Protector with — 


favour. That party had always been desirous to see the old civil 


polity of the realm restored with some clearer definitions and some — 


stronger safeguards for public liberty, but had many reasons for 
dreading the restoration of the old family. Richard was the very 


man for politicians of this description. His humanity, ingenuous- 


ness, and modesty, the mediocrity of his abilities, and the docility 


with which he submitted to the guidance of persons wiser than him- ; 


self, admirably qualified him to be the head of a limited monarchy. 
For a time it seemed highly probable that he would, under the 

direction of able advisers, effect what his father had attempted in 

vain. A Parliament was called, and the writs were directed after 


the old fashion. The small boroughs which had recently been dis- 


franchised regained their lost privilege: Manchester, Leeds, and 
Halifax ceased to return members; and the county of York was 
again limited to two knights. It may seem strange to a generation 
which has been excited almost to madness by the question of parlia- 
mentary reform that great shires and towns should have submitted 
with patience, and even with complacency, tothis change: but though 
speculative men might, even in that age, discern the vices of the old 
representative system, and predict that those vices would, sooner or 
later, produce serious practical evil, the practical evil had not yet been 


felt. Oliver’s representative system, on the other hand, though con- — 
structed on sound principles, was not popular. Both the events in 
which it originated, and the effects which it had produced, prejudiced — 
men against it. It had sprung from military violence. It had been — 
fruitful of nothing but disputes. The whole nation was sick of goy- 


Pe 


a a. ee 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 91 


ernment by the sword, and pined for government by the law. The 
restoration, therefore, even of anomalies and abuses, which were in 


_ strict conformity with the law, and which had been destroyed by the 


sword, gave general satisfaction. 

Among the Commons there was a strong opposition, consisting 
partly of avowed Republicans, and partly of concealed Royalists: 
but a large and steady majority appeared to be favourable to the plan 
of reviving the old civil constitution under a new dynasty. Rich- 
ard was solemnly recognised as first -magistrate. The Commons not 
only consented to transact business with Oliver’s Lords, but passed a 
a vote acknowledging the right of those nobles who had, in the late 
troubles, taken the side of public liberty, to sit “a the Upper House 
of Parliament without any new creation. 

Thus far the statesmen by whose advice Richard acted had been 
successful. Almost all the parts of the government were now consti- 


tuted as they had been constituted at the commencement of the 


civil war. Had the Protector and the Parliament been suffered 
to proceed undisturbed, there can be little doubt that an order 
of things similar to that which was afterwards established un- 
der the House of Hanover would have been established under 
the House of Cromwell. But there was in the state a power 
more than sufficient to deal with Protector and Parliament to- 
gether. Over the soldiers Ricbard had no authority except that 
which he derived from the great name which he had inherited. He 
had never led them to victory. He had never even borne arms. 
All his tastes and habits were pacific. Nor were his opinions and 
feelings on religious subjects _»proved by the military saints. That 


he was a good man he evinced by proofs more satisfactory than deep 


groans or long sermons, by humility and suavity when he was at 
the height of human greatness, and by cheerful resignation under 


cruel wrongs and misfortunes: but the cant then common in every 


guardroom gave him a disgust which he had not always the pru- 
dence to conceal. The officers who had the principal influence 
among the troops stationed near London were not his friends. They 
were men distinguished by valour and conduct in the field, but des- 


 titute of the wisdom and civil courage which had been conspicuous 


~<a. 


in their deceased leader. Some of them were honest, but fanatical, 


Tndependents and Republicans. Of this class Fleetwood was the 


representative. Others were impatient to be what Oliver had been. 
His rapid elevation, his prosperity and glory, his inauguration in the 
Hall, and his gorgeous obsequies in the Abbey, had inflamed their 
imagination. They were as well born as he, and as well educated: 
they could not understand why they were not as worthy to wear the 
purple robe, and to wield the sword of state; and they pursued the 


objects of their wild ambition, not, like him, with patience, vigi- 


lance, sagacity, and determination, but with the restlessness and 


: irresolution characteristic of aspiring mediocrity. Among these 


. 


92 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
fecble copies of a great original the most conspicuous was Lam ~ 
bert. ; 
On the very day of Richard’s accession the officers began to con- 
spire against their new master. The good understanding which ex-— 
isted between him and his Parliament hastened the crisis. Alarm 
and resentment spread through the camp. Both the religious and the 
professional feelings of the army were deeply wounded. It seemed 
that the Independents were to be subjected to the Presbyterians, 
and that the men of the sword were to be subjected to the men of 
the gown. A coalition was formed between the military malcon- 
tents and the republican minority of the House of Commons, It 
may well be doubted whether Richard could have triumphed over 
that coalition, even if he had inherited his father’s clear judgment 
and iron courage. It is certain that simplicity and meekness like © 
his were not the qualities which the conjuncture required. He fell 
ingloriously, and without a struggle. He was used by the army as 
an instrument for the purpose of dissolving the Parliament, and was 
then contemptuously thrown aside. The officers gratified their 
republican allies by declaring that the expulsion of the Rump had 
been illegal, and by inviting that assembly to resume its functions, © 
The old Speaker and a quorum of the old members came together, — 
and were proclaimed, amidst the scarcely stifled derision and execra-— 
tion of the whole nation, the supreme power in the commonwealth. ~ 
It was at the same time expressly declared that there should be no- 
first magistrate, and no House of Lords. 
But this state of things could not last. On the day on which the — 
Long Parliament revived, revived also its old quarrel with the army. — 
Again the Rump forgot that it owed its existence to the pleasure of © 
the soldiers, and began to treat them as subjects. Again the doors — 
of the House of Commons were closed by military violence; and a 
provisional government, named by the officers, assumed the direc- 
tion of affairs. i 
Meanwhile the sense of great evils, and the strong apprehension of — 
still greater evils close at hand, had at length produced an alliance ~ 
between the Cavaliers and the Presbyterians. Some Presbyterians 
had, indeed, been disposed to such an alliance even before the death — 
of Charles the First: but it was not till after the fall of Richard 
Cromwell that the whole party became eager for the restoration of — 
the royal house. There was no longer any reasonable hope that the 
old constitution could be reestablished under a new dynasty. One 
choice only was left, the Stuarts or the army. The banished family 
had committed great faults; but it had dearly expiated those faults, and 
had undergone a long, and, it might be hoped, a salutary training 
in the school of adversity. It was probable that Charles the Second 
would take warning by the fate of Charles the First. But, be this 
as it might, the dangers which threatened the country were such 
that, in order to avert them, some opinions might well be compro- 


a 
ao 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 93 


mised, and some risks might well beincurred. It seemed but too likely 
that England would fall under the most odious and degrading of 
all kinds of government, under a government uniting all the evils of 
despotism to all the evils of anarchy. Anything was preferable to 
the yoke of a succession of incapable and inglorious tyrants, raised 
to power, like the Deys of Barbary, by military revolutions recur- 
ring at short intervals. Lambert seemed likely to be the first of 
these rulers; but within a year Lambert might give place to Des- 
borough, and Desborough to Harrison. As often as the truncheon 
was transferred from one feeble hand to another, the nation would 
be pillaged for the purpose of bestowing a fresh donative on the 
troops. If the Presbyterians obstinately stood aloof from the Royal- 
ists, the state was lost; and men might well doubt whether, by the 
combined exertions of Presbyterians and Royalists, it could be saved. 
For the dread of that invincible army was on all the inhabitants 
of the island; and the Cavaliers, taught py a hundred disastrous 
fields how little numbers can effect against discipline, were even 
more completely cowed than the Roundheads. 

While the soldiers remained united, all the plots and risings of the 
malecontents were ineffectual. But a few days after the second ex- 
pulsion of the Rump, came tidings which gladdened the hearts of all 
who were attached either to monarchy or to liberty. That mighty 
force which had, during many years, acted as one man, and which, 
while so acting, had been found irresistible, was at length divided 
against itself. The army of Scotland had done good service to the 
“ Commonwealth, and was in the highest state of efficiency. It had 
borne no part in the late revolutions, and had seen them with indigna- 
tion resembling the indignation which the Roman legions posted on 
the Danube and the Euphrates felt, when they learned that the em- 
pire had been put up to sale by the Pretorian Guards. It was in- 
tolerable that certain regiments should, merely because they happened 
to be quartered near Westminster, take on themselves to make and 
unmake several governments in the course of half a year. If it were 
fit that the state should be regulated by the soldiers, those soldiers 
who upheld the English ascendency on the north of the Tweed were 
as well entitled to a voice as those who garrisoned the Tower of Lon- 
don. There appears to have been less fanaticism among the troops 
stationed in Scotland than in any other part of the army’, and their 
orl, George Monk, was himself the very opposite of a zealot. 

e had at the commencement of the civil war, borne arms for the 
King, had been made prisoner by the Roundheads, had then accepted 
a commission from the Parliament, and, with very slender preten- 
sions to saintship, had raised himself to high commands by his cour- 
age and professional skill. He had been an useful servant to both 
the Protectors, and had quietly acquiesced when the officers at West- 
minster had pulled down Richard and restored the Long Parliament, 
and oe perhaps have acquiesced as quietly in the second expulsion 

. E.i-4 


94 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


of the Long Parliament, if the provisional government had abstained 
from giving him cause of offence and apprehension. For his nature 
was cautious and somewhat sluggish; nor was. he at all disposed to 
hazard sure and moderate advantages for the chance of obtaining 
even the most splendid success. He seems to have been impelled to 
attack the new rulers of the Commonwealth less by the hope that, if 
he overthrew them, he should become great, than by the fear that, 1f 
he submitted to them, he should not even be secure. Whatever were 
his motives, he declared himself the champion of the oppressed civil 
power, refused to acknowledge the usurped authority of the pro- 
visional government, and, at the head of seven thousand veterans, 
marched into England. 
This step was the signal for a general explosion. The people every- 
where refused to pay taxes. The apprentices of the City assembled 
by thousands and clamoured for a free Parliament. The fleet sailed 
up the Thames, and declared against the tyranny of the soldiers. 
The soldiers, no longer under the control of one commanding mind, 
separated into factions. Every regiment, afraid lest it should be left 
alone a mark for the vengeance of the oppressed nation, hastened to 
make a separate peace. Lambert, who had hastened northward to 
encounter the army of Scotland, was abandoned by his troops, and 


became a prisoner. During thirteen years the civil power had, in — 


every conflict, been compelled to yield to the military power. The 
military power now humbled itself before the civil power. The 
Rump, generally hated and despised, but still the only body in the 
country which had any show of legal authority, returned again to 
the house from which it had been twice ignominiously expelled. 


In the mean time Monk was advancing towards London. Wherever ~ 


he came, the gentry flocked round him, imploring him to use his 
power for the purpose of restoring peace and liberty to the distracted 
nation. The General, coldblooded, taciturn, zealous for no polity 
and for no religion, maintained an impenetrable reserve. What were 
at this time his plans, and whether he had any plan, may well be 


doubted. His great object, apparently, was to keep himself, as long — 


as possible, free to choose between several lines of action. Such, in- 
deed, is commonly the policy of men who are, like him, distinguished 
rather by wariness than by farsightedness. It was probably not till 
he had been some days in the capital that he had made up his mind. 
The cry of the whole people was for a free Parliament; and there 
could be no doubt that a Parliament really free would instantly re- 
store the exiled family. ‘The Rump and the soldiers were still hostile 
to the House of Stuart. But the Rump was universally detested 
and despised. The power of the soldiers was indeed still formidable, 
but had been greatly diminished by discord. They had no head. 


-y 


They had recently been, in many parts of the country, arrayed — 


against each other. On the day before Monk reached London, there 


was a fight in the Strand between the cavalry and the infantry. An — 


4 


j 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 95 


united army had long kept down a divided nation; but the nation 
~ was now united, and the army was divided. 

During a short time the dissimulation or irresolution of Monk kept 
all parties in a state of painful suspense. At length he broke silence, 
and declared for a free Parliament. 

As soon as his declaration was known, the whole nation was wild 
with delight. Wherever he appeared thousands thronged around 
him, shouting and blessing hisname. The bells of all England rang 
joyously: the gutters ran with ale; and, night after night, the sky 
five miles round London was reddened by innumerable bonfires. 
Those Presbyterian members of the House of Commons who had 
many years before been expelled by the army, returned to their seats, 

- and were hailed with acclamations by great multitudes, which filled 

Westminster Hall and Palace Yard. The Independent leaders no 
longer dared to show their faces in the streets, and were scarcely safe 
within their own dwellings. Temporary provision was made for the 
government: writs were issued for a general election; and then that 
memorable Parliament, which had, in the course of twenty eventful 
years, experienced every variety of fortune, which had triumphed 
over its sovereign, which had been enslaved and degraded by its ser- 
vants, which had been twice ejected and twice restored, solemnly de- 

creed its own dissolution. 

The result of the elections was such as might have been expected 
from the temper of the nation. The new House of Commons con- 

sisted, with few exceptions, of persons friendly to the royal family. 
The Presbyterians formed the majority. 

That there would be a restoration now seemed almost certain, but 

whether there would be a peaceable restoration was matter of painful 
“doubt. The soldiers were in a gloomy and savage mood. They 

hated the title of King. They hated the name of Stuart. They 
hated Presbyterianism much, and Prelacy more. They saw with 

bitter indignation that the close of their long domination was ap- 

proaching, and that a life of inglorious toil and penury was before 
them. They attributed their ill fortune to the weakness of some 
generals, and to the treason of others. One hour of their beloved 
Oliver might even now restore the glory which had departed. Be- 
trayed, disunited, and left without any chief in whom they could 
confide, they were yet to be dreaded. It was no light thing to en- 
counter the rage and despair of fifty thousand fighting men, whose 
backs no enemy had ever seen. Monk, and those with whom he 
acted, were well aware that the crisis was most perilous. They em- 
ployed every art to soothe and to divide the discontented warriors. 
At the same time vigorous preparation was made for a conflict. The 
army of Scotland, now quartered in London, was kept in good 
humour by bribes, praises, and promises. The wealthy citizens 
peed nothing to a red coat, and were indeed so liberal of their 
est wine, that warlike saints were sometimes seen in a condition not 


96 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


very honourable either to their religious or to their military character. 
Some refractory regiments Monk ventured to disband. In the mean 
time the greatest exertions were made by the ‘provisional govern- 
ment, with the strenuous aid of the whole body of the gentry and 
magistracy, to organise the militia. In every county the trainbands 
were held ready to march; and this force cannot be estimated at less 
than a hundred and twenty thousand men. In Hyde Park twenty 
thousand citizens, well armed and accoutred, passed in review, and 
showed a spirit which justified the hope that, in case of need, they 
would fight manfully for their shops and firesides. The fleet was 
heartily with the nation. It was a stirring time, a time of anxiety, 
yet of hope. The prevailing opinion was that England would be de- 
livered, but not without a desperate and bloody struggle, and that the 
class which had so long ruled by the sword would perish by the 
sword. 

Happily the dangers of a conflict were averted. There was indeed 
one moment of extreme peril. Lambert escaped from his confine- 
ment, and called his comrades to arms. The flame of civil war was 
actually rekindled; but by prompt and vigorous exertion it was 
trodden out before it had time to spread. The luckless imitator of ; 
Cromwell was again a prisoner. The failure of hisenterprisedamped — 
the spirit of the soldiers; and they sullenly resigned themselves to 
their fate. 

The new Parliament, which, having been called without the royal — 
writ, is more accurately described as a Convention, met at West- 
minster. The Lords repaired to the hall, from which they had, 
during more than eleven years, been excluded by force. Both Houses 
instantly invited the King to return to his country. He was pro- 
claimed with pomp never before known. A gallant fleet convoyed 
him from Holland to the coast of Kent. When he landed, the cliffs 
of Dover were covered by thousands of gazers, among whom scarcely 
one could be found who was not weeping with delight. The journey 
to London was a continued triumph. The whole road from Roches- 
ter was bordered by booths and tents, and looked like an interminable 
fair. Everywhere flags were flying, bells and music sounding, wine 
and ale flowing in rivers to the health of him whose return was the 
return of peace, of law, and of freedom. But in the midst of the 
general joy, one spot presented a dark and threatening aspect. On ~ 
Blackheath the army was drawn up to welcome the sovereign. He ~ 
smiled, bowed, and extended his hand graciously to the lips of the 
colonels and majors. But all his courtesy was vain. The counte- |. 
nances of the soldiers were sad and lowering; and had they given 
way to their feelings, the festive pageant of which they reluctantly 
made a part would have had a mournful and bloody end. But there 
was no concert among them. Discord and defection had left them 
no confidence in their chiefs or in each other. The whole array of — 
the City of London was under arms. Numerous companies of — 


pe Oe Sa es 


v 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 97 


militia had assembled from various parts of the realm, under the 
command of loyal noblemen and gentlemen, to welcome the King. 
That great day closed in peace; and the restored wanderer reposed 
safe in the palace of his ancestors. 


CHAPTER II. 


TuE history of England, during the seventeenth century, is the 
history of the transformation of a limited monarchy, constituted after 
the fashion of the middle ages, into a limited monarchy suited to that 
more advanced state of society in which the public charges can no 
longer be borne by the estates of the crown, and in which the public 
defence can no longer be entrusted to a feudal militia. We have 
seen that the politicians who were at the head of the Long Parliament 
made, in 1642, a great affort to accomplish this change by transferring, 
directly and formally, to the estates of the realm the choice of minis. 
ters, the command of the army, and the superintendence of the whole 
executive administration. ‘This scheme was, perhaps, the best that 
could then be contrived: but it was completely disconcerted by the 
course which the civil war took. The Houses triumphed, it is true; 
but not till after such a struggle as made it necessary for them to call 
into existence a power which they could not control, and which soon 
began to domineer over all orders and all parties. During a few years, 
the evils inseparable from military government were, in some degree, 
mitigated by the wisdom and magnanimity of the great man who 
held the supreme command. But, when the sword, which he had 
wielded, with energy indeed, but with energy always guided by good 
sense and generally tempered by good nature, had passed to captains 
who possessed neither his abilities nor his virtues, it seemed too prob- 
able that order and liberty would perish in one ignominious ruin. 

That ruin was happily averted. It has been too much the practice 


‘of writers zealous for freedom to represent the Restoration as a disas- 


trous event, and to condemn the folly or baseness of that Convention, 
which recalled the royal family without exacting new sccurities 
against maladministration. Those who hold this language do not 
comprehend the real nature of the crisis which followed the deposi- 
tion of Richard Cromwell. England was in imminent danger of 
falling under the tyranny of a succession of small men raised up and 
pulled down by military caprice. To deliver the country from the 
domination of the soldiers was the first object of every enlightened 
patriot: but it was an object which, while the soldiers were united, 
the most sanguine could scarcely expect to attain. On a sudden a 
gleam of hope appeared. General was opposed to general, army to 
army. On the use which might be made of one auspicious moment 
depended the future destiny of the nation, Our ancestors used that 


98 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 4 


moment well. They forgot old injuries, waived petty scruples, ad- 
journed to a more convenient season-all dispute about the reforms 
which our institutions needed, and stood together, Cavaliers and 
Roundheads, Episcopalians and Presbyterians, in firm union, for the 
old laws of the land against military despotism. The exact partition 


of power among King, Lords, and Commons might well be postponed 


till it had been decided whether England should be governed by King, 
Lords, and Commons, or by cuirassiers and pikemen. Had the 
statesmen of the Convention taken a different course, had they held 
long debates on the principles of government, had they drawn up a 
new constitution and sent it to Charles, had conferences been opened, 
had couriers been passing and repassing during some weeks between 
Westminster and the Netherlands, with projects and counterprojects, 
replies by Hyde and rejoinders by Prynne, the coalition on which the 
public safety depended would have been dissolved: the Presbyterians 
and Royalists would certainly have quarrelled: the military factions 
might possibly have been reconciled; and the misjudging friends of 
liberty might long have regretted, under a rule worse than that of the 
worst Stuart, the golden opportunity which had been suffered to 
escape. 
The old civil polity was, therefore, by the general consent of both 
the great parties, reestablished. It was again exactly what it had 
been when Charles the First, eighteen years before, withdrew from 
his capital. All those acts of the Long Parliament which had receiv- 
ed the royal assent were admitted to be still in force. One fresh con- 
cession, a concession in which the Cavaliers were even more deeply 
interested than the Roundheads, was easily obtained from the restored 
King. The military tenure of land had been originally created as a 
means of national defence. But in the course of ages whatever was 
useful in the institution had disappeared; and nothing was left but 
ceremonies and grievances. A landed proprietor who held an estate 
under the crown by knight service,—and it was thus that most of the 
-soil of England was held,—had to pay a large fine on coming to his 
property. He could not alienate one acre without purchasing a 
license. When he died, if his domains descended to an infant, the 
sovereign was guardian, and was not only entitled to great part of the 
rents during the minority, but could require the ward, under heavy 
penalties, to marry any person of suitable rank. The chief bait which 
attracted a needy sycophant to the court was the hope of obtaining 
as the reward of servility and flattery, a royal letter to an heiress. 
These abuses had perished with the monarchy. That they should not 
revive with it was the wish of every landed gentleman in the king- 
dom. They were, therefore, solemnly abolished by statute; and no 
relic of the ancient tenures in chivalry was allowed to remain except 


those honorary services which are still, at a coronation, rendered to ~ 


the person of the sovereign by some lords of manors. . 
The troops were now to be disbanded. Fifty thousand men, ac 


ant a ce 


secsias 


; 


Fb, ec 


ek: Lee 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 99 


customed to the profession of arms, were at once thrown on the 
world: and experience seemed to warrant the belief that this change 
would produce much misery and crime, that the discharged veterans 
would be seen begging in every street, or that they would be driven 
by hunger to pillage. But nosuch result followed. In afew months 
there remained not a trace indicating that the most formidable army 
in the world had just been absorbed into the mass of the community. 
The Royalists themselves confessed that, in every department of hon- 
est industry, the discarded warriors prospered beyond other men, that 
none was charged with any theft or robbery, that none was heard to 
ask an alms, and that, if a baker, a mason, or a waggoner attracted 
notice by his diligence and sobriety, he was in all probability one of 
Oliver’s old soldiers, 

The military tyranny had passed away; but it had left deep and 
enduring traces in the public mind. The name of standing army 
was long held in abhorrence: and it is remarkable that this feeling 
was even stronger among the Cavaliers than among the Roundheads. 
It ought to be considered asa most fortunate circumstance that, when 
our country was, for the first and last time, ruled by the sword, the 
sword was in the hands, not of legitimate princes, but of those rebels 
who slew the King and demolished the Church. Had a prince with 
a title as good as that of Charles, commanded an army as good as 
that of Cromwell, there would have been little hope indeed for the 
liberties of Exgland. Happily that instrument by which alone the 
monarchy could be made absolute became an object of peculiar hor- 
ror and disgust to the monarchical party, and long continued to be 
inseparably associated in the imagination of Royalists and Prelatists 
- with regicide and field preaching. A century after the death of 
Cromwell, the Tories still continued to clamour against every aug- 
mentation of the regular soldiery, and to sound the praise of a national 
mnilitia. So late as the year 1786, a minister who enjoyed no common 
measure of their confidence found it impossible to overcome their 
_ aversion to his scheme of fortifying the coast: nor did they ever look 
with entire complacency on the standing army, till the French Revo- 
lution gave a new direction to their apprehensions. 

The coalition which had restored the King terminated with the 
danger from which it had sprung; and two hostile parties again ap- 
peared ready for conflict. Both, indeed, were agreed as to the pro- 
_priety of inflicting punishment on some unhappy men who were, 
at that moment, objects of almost universal hatred. Cromwell was 
no more; and those who had fled before him were forced to content 
themselves with the miserable satisfaction of digging up, hanging, 
quartering, and burning the remains of the greatest prince that has 
ever ruled England. Other objects of vengeance, few indeed, yet too 
many, were found among the republican chiefs. Soon, however, the 
conquerors, glutted with the blood of the regicides, turned against 
each other. The Roundheads, while admitting the virtues of the 


100 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


late King, and while condemning the sentence passed upon him by a 


an illegal tribunal, yet maintained that his administration had been, 
in many things, unconstitutional, and that the House has taken arms 
against him from good motives and on strong grounds, ‘The monar- 
chy, these politicians conceived, had no worse enemy than the flat- 
terer who exalted prerogative above the law, who condemned all 
opposition to regal encroachments, and who reviled, not only Crom- 
well and Harrison, but Pym and Hampden, as traitors. If the King 
wished for a quiet and prosperous reign, he must confide in those 
who, though they had drawn the sword in defence of the invaded 
privileges of Parliament, had yet exposed themselves to the rage of 
the soldiers in order to save his father, and had taken the chief part 
in bringing back the royal family. 

The feeling of the Cavaliers was widely different. During cigh- 
teen years they had, through all vicissitudes, been faithful to the 
Crown. Having shared the distress of their prince, were they not to 
share his triumph? Was no distinction to be made between them 
and the disloyal subject who had fought against his rightful sov- 
ercign, who had adhered to Richard Cromwell, and who had never 
concurred in the restoration of the Stuarts, till it appeared that noth- 
ing else could save the nation from the tyranny of the army? Grant 
that such a man had, by his recent services, fairly earned his pardon. 
Yet were his services, rendered at the eleventh hour, to be put in 
comparison with the toils and sufferings of those who had borne the 
burden and heat of the day? Was he to be ranked with men who 
had no need of the royal clemency, with men who had, in every part of 
their lives, merited the royal gratitude? Above all, was he to be suf- 
fered to retain a fortune raised out of the substance of the ruined de- 
fenders of the throne? Was it not enough that his head and his patri- 
monial estate, a hundred times forfeited to justice, were secure, and 
that he shared, with the rest of the nation, in the blessings of that miid 
government of which he had long been the foe? Was it necessary 
that he should be rewarded for his treason at the expense of men 
whose only crime was the fidelity with which they had observed their 
oath of allegiance? And what interest had the King in gorging his 
old enemies with prey torn from his old friends? What confidence 
could be placed in men who had opposed their sovereign, made war 
on him, imprisoned him, and who, even now, instead of hanging 
down their heads in shame and contrition, vindicated all that they 
had done, and seemed to think that they had given an illustrious 
proof of loyalty by just stopping short of regicide? It was true they 
had lately assisted to set up the throne: but it was not less true that 
they had previously pu led it down, and that they still avowed prin- 
ciples which might impel them to pull it down again. Undoubtedly 
it might be fit that marks of royal approbation should be bestowed 
on some converts who had been eminently useful: but policy, as well 
as justice and gratitude, enjoined the King to give the highest place 


. we 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 101 


in his regard to those who, from first to last, through good and evil, 
had stood by his house. On these grounds the Cavaliers very natu- 
rally demanded indemnity for all that they had suffered, and prefer- 
ence in the distribution of the favours of the Crown. Some violent 
members of the party went further, and clamoured for large categories 
of proscription. 

The political feud was, as usual, exasperated by a religious feud. 
‘The King found the Church in a singular state. A short time before 
the commencement of the civil war, his father had given a reluctant 
assent to a bill, strongly supported by Falkland, which deprived the 
Bishops of ticir seats in the House of Lords: but Episcopacy and the 
Liturgy had never been abolished by law. The Long Parliament, 
however, had passed ordinances which had made a complete revolu- 
tion in Church gov.rnment and in public worship. The new system 
was, in principle, scarcely less Erastian than that which it displaced. 
The Houses, guided chietly by the counsels of the accomplished Selden, 
had determined to keep the spiritual power strictly subordinate 
to the temporal power. They had refused to declare that any form 
of ecclesiastical polity was of divine origin; and they had provided 
that, from all the Church courts, an appeal should lie in the last re- 
sort to Parliament. With this highly important reservation, it had 
been resolved to set up in England a hierarchy closely resembling 
that which now exists in Scotland. The authority of councils, rising 
one above another in regular gradation, was substituted for the 
authority of Bishops and Archbishops. The Liturgy gave place to 
the Presbyterian Directory. But scarcely had the new regulations 
been framed, when the Independents rose to supreme influence in 
the state. The Independents had no disposition to enforce the or- 
dinances touching classical, provincial, and national synods. Those 
ordinances, therefore, were never carried into full execution. ‘The 
Presbyterian system was fully established nowhere but in Middlesex 
and Lancashire. In the other fifty counties almost every parish seems 
to have been unconnected with the neighbouring parishes. In some 
districts, indeed, the ministers formed themselves into voluntary 
associations, for the purpose of mutual help and counsei; but these 
associations had no coercive power. ‘The patrons of livings, being 
now checked by neither Bishop nor Presbytery, would have been at 
liberty to confide the cure of souls to the most scandalous of man- 
kind, but for the arbitrary intervention of Oliver. He established, 
by his own authority, a board of commissioners, called Triers. Most 
of these persons were Independent divines; but a few Presbyterian 
ministers and a few laymen had seats. The certificate of the Triers 
stood in the place both of institution and of induction; and without 
such a certificate no person could hold a benefice. This was un- 
doubtedly one of the most despotic acts ever done by any English 
ruler, Yet, as it was generally felt that, without some such precau- 
tion, the country would be overrun by ignorant and drunken repro- 


102 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. Be 


bates, bearing the name and receiving the pay of ministers, some 
highly respectable persons, who were not in general friendly to Crom- 
well, allowed that, on this occasion, he had been a public benefactor. 
The presentees whom the Triers had approved took possession of the — 
rectories, cultivated the glebe lands, collected the tithes, prayed with- 
out book or surplice, and administered the Eucharist tocommunicants ~ 
seated at long tables. 

Thus the ecclesiastical polity of the realm was in inextricable con- 
fusion. Episcopacy was the form of government prescribed by the 
old law which was still unrepealed. The form of government pre- 
scribed by parliamentary ordinance was Presbyterian. But neither 
the old law nor the parliamentary odinance was practically in force. 
The Church actually established may be described as an irregular body 
made up of a few Presbyteries and many Independent congregations, 
which were all held down and held together by the authority of the 
government. 

Of those who had been active in bringing back the King, many were 
zealous for Synods and for the Directory, and many were desirous © 
to terminate by a compromise the religious dissensions which had long © 
agitated England Between the bigoted followers of Laud and the — 
bigoted followers of Knox there could be neither peace nor truce: 
but it did not seem impossible to effect an accommodation between 
the moderate Episcopalians of the school of Usher and the moderate 
Presbyterians of the school of Baxter. The moderate Episcopalians — 
would admit that a Bishop might lawfully be assisted by acouncil. The — 
moderate Presbyterians would not deny that each provincial assembly — 
might lawfully have a permanent president, and that this president — 
might lawfully be calleda Bishop. ‘There might be arevised Liturgy 
which should not exclude extemporaneous prayer, a baptismal — 
service in which the sign of the cross might be used or omitted at — 
discretion, a communion service at which the faithful might sit if 
their conscience forbade them to kneel. But to no such plan could © 
the great bodies of the Cavaliers listen with patience. The religious — 
members of that party were conscientiously attached to the whole © 
system of their Church. She had been dear to their murdered King. — 
She had consoled them in defeat and penury. Her service, so often — 
whispered in an inner chamber during the season of trial, had such a — 
charm for them that they were unwilling to part with a single re- 
sponse. Other Royalists, who made little pretence to piety, yet © 
loved the episcopal church because she was the foe of their foes. 
They valued a prayer or a ceremony, not on account of the comfort 
which it conveyed to themselves, but on account of the vexation — 
which it gave to the Roundheads, and were so far from being dis- ; 
posed to purchase union by concession that they objected to conces- — 
sion chiefly because it tended to produce union. a 

Such feelings, though blamable, were natural, and not wholly 
inexcusable. The Puritans had undoubtedly, in the day of their 
power, given cruel provocation. They ought to have learned, if — 


i 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 103 


from nothing else, yet from their own discontents, from their own 
struggles, from their own victory, from the fall of that proud 
hierarchy by which they had been so heavily oppressed, that, in 
England, and in the seventeenth century, it was not in the 
power of the civil magistrate to drill the minds of men into 
conformity with his own system of theology. They proved, however, 
ever, as intolerant and as meddling as ever Laud had been. They in- 
terdicted under heavy penalties the use of the Book of Common 
Prayer, not only in churches, but even in private houses. It was a 
crime in a child to read by the bedside of a sick parent one of those 
beautiful collects which had soothed the griefs of forty generations of 
Christians. Severe punishments were denounced against such as 
should presume to blame the Calvinistic mode of worship. Clergymen 
of respectable character were not only ejected from their benefices by 
thousands, but were frequently exposed to the outrages of a fanatical 
rabble. Churches and sepulchres, fine works of art and curious re- 
mains of antiquity, were brutally defaced. The Parliament resolved 
that all pictures in the royal collection which contained representa- 
tions of Jesus or of the Virgin Mother should be burned. Scripture 
fared as ill as painting. Nymphs and Graces, the work of Ionian 
chisels, were delivered over to Puritan stonemasons to be made de- 
cent. Against the lighter vices the ruling faction waged war with a 
zeal little tempered by humanity or by commonsense. Sharp laws were 
passed against betting. It was enacted that adultery should be pun- 
ished with death. The illicit intercourse of the sexes, even where 
neither violence nor seduction was imputed, where no public scandal 
was given, where no conjugal right was violated, was made a misde- 
meanour. Public amusements, from the masques which were exhib- 
ited at the mansions of the great down to the wrestling matches and 
grinning matches on village greens, were vigorously attacked. One 
ordinance directed that all the Maypoles in England should forthwith 
be hewn down. Another proscribed all theatrical diversions. The 
playhouses were to be dismantled, the spectators fined, the actors 
whipped at the cart’s tail. Rope-dancing, puppet-shows, bowls, 
horse-racing, were regarded with no friendly eye. But bearbaiting, 
then a favourite diversion of high and low, was the abomination 
which most strongly stirred the wrath of the austere sectaries. It is 
to be remarked that their antipathy to this sport had nothing in com- 
mon with the feeling which has, in our own time, induced the legisla- 
ture to interfere for the purpose of protecting beasts against the wanton 
cruelty of men. The Puritan hated bearbaiting, not because it gave 
pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators. In- © 
deed, he generally contrived to enjoy the double pleasure of torment- 
ing beth spectators and bear.* 


* How little compassion for the bear had to do with the matter is sufficiently 
sige by the following extract from a paper entitled A perfect Diurnal of some 
assages of Parliament and from other Parts of the Kingdom, from Monday 


104 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


Perhaps no single circumstance more strongly illustrates the tem- 
per of the precisians than their conduct respecting Christmas day. 
Christmas had been, from time immemorial, the season of joy and — 
domestic affection, the season when families assembled, when chil- 
dren came home from school, when quarrels were made up, when 
carols were heard in every street, when every house was decorated 
withevergreens, and every table was loaded with good cheer. At that 
season all hearts not utterly destitute of kindness were enlarged and — 
softened. At that season the poor were admitted to partake largely © 
of the overflowings of the wealth of the rich, whose bounty was pecu- 
liarly acceptable on account of the shortness of the days and of the © 
severity of the weaths*. At that season, the interval between land- 
lord and tenant, master and servant, was less marked than through 
the rest of the year. Where there is much enjoyment there will be ~ 
some excess: yet, on the whole, the spirit in which the holiday was — 
kept was not unworthy of a Christian festival. The Long Parliament 
gave orders, in 1644, that the twenty-fifth of December should be 
strictly observed as a fast, and that all men should pass it in humbly 
bemoaning the great national sin which they and their fathers had so — 
often committed on that day by romping under the mistletoe, eating © 
boar’s head, and drinking ale flavored with roasted apples. No pub-— 
lic act of that time seems to have irritated the common people more. 
On the next anniversary of the festival formidable riots broke out in 
many places. The constables were resisted, the magistrates insulted, 
the houses of noted zealots attacked, and the prescribed service of the — 
day openly read in the churches. | 

Such was the spirit of the extreme Puritans, both Presbyterian — 
and Independent. Oliver, indeed, was little disposed to be either a 
persecutor or a meddler. But Oliver, the head of a party, and con- 
sequently, to a great extent, the slave of a party, could not govern 
altogether according to his own inclinations. Even under his admin- 
istration many magistrates, within their own jurisdiction, made 

a 
July 24th, to Monday July 31st, 1643. ‘‘ Upon the Queen’s coming from Holland 
she brought with her, besides a company of savage-like ruffians, a company of — 
savage bears, to what purpose you may judge by the sequel. Those bears were | 
left about Newark, and were brought into country towns constantly on the Lord’s — 
day to be baited, such is the religion those here related would settle amongst — 
us; and, if any went about to hinder or but speak against their damnable prof- 
anations, they were presently noted as Roundheads and Puritans, and sure to be 
plundered for it. But some of Colonel Cromwell’s forces coming by accident 


into Uppingham town, in Rutland, on the Lord’s day, found these bears playing © 
there in the usual manner, and, in the height of their sport, caused them to be 


ee i i a De 


seized upon, tied to a tree and shot.’’ This was by no means a solitary instance. 
Colonel Pride, when Sheriff of Surrey, ordered the beasts in the bear garden of ; 
Southwark to be killed. He is represented by a loyal satirist as defending the s 
act thus: “ The first thing that is upon my spirits is the killing of the bears, for 
which the people hate me, and call me all the names in therainbow. But did 
_ not David killa bear? Did not the Lord Deputy Ireton kill a bear? Did not 
Se lord of ours kill five bears?’’—Last Speech and Dying Words of Thome* / 
ride. oa 


fs 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 105 


themselves as odious as Sir Hudibras, interfered with all the pleas- 
ures of the neighbourhood, dispersed festive meetings, and put fid- 
dlers in the stocks. Still more formidable was the zeal of the sol- 
diers. In every village where they appeared there was an end of 
dancing, bellringing, and hockey. In London they several times in- 
terrupted theatrical performances at which the Protector had the 
judgment and good nature to connive. 

With the fear and hatred inspired by such a tyranny contempt was 
largely mingled. The peculiarities of the Puritan, his look, his 
dress, his dialect, his strange scruples, had been, ever since the time 
of Elizabeth, favourite subjects with mockers. ‘But these peculiari- 
ties appeared far more grotesque in a faction which ruled a great 
empire than in obscure and persecuted congregations. The cant, 
which had moved laughter when it was heard on the stage from 
Tribulation Wholesome and Zeal-of-the-Land Busy, was still more 
laughable when it proceeded from the lips of Generals and Coun- 
cillors of State. It is also to be noticed that during the civil troubles 
several sects had sprung into existence, whose eccentricities sur- 
passed anything that had before been seen in England. <A mad 
tailor, named Lodowick Muggleton, wandered from pothouse to pot- 

‘house, tippling ale, and denouncing eternal torments against those 
who refused to believe, on his testimony, that the Supreme Being 
only six feet high, and that the sun was just four miles from the 

-earth.* George Fox had raised a tempest of derision by proclaiming 
that it was a violation of Christian sincerity to designate a single 
person by a plural pronoun, and that it was an idolatrous homage to 
Janus and Woden to talk about January and Wednesday. His doc- 
trine, a few years later, was embraced by some eminent men, and rose 
greatly in the public estimation. But at the time of the Restoration 
the Quakers were popularly regarded as the most despicable of 
fanatics. By the Puritans they were treated with severity here, and 
were persecuted to the death in New England. Nevertheless the 

ublic, which seldom makes nice distinctions, often confounded the 

uritan with the Quaker. Both were schismatics. Both hated 
episcopacy and the Liturgy. Both had what seemed extravagant 
Whimsies about dress, diversions, and postures. Widely as the two 
differed in opinion, they were popularly classed together as canting 
schismatics; and whatever was ridiculous or odious in either increas- 
ed the scorn and aversion which the multitude felt for both. 

Before the civil wars, even those who most disliked the opinions 
and manners of the Puritan were forced to admit that his moral con- 
duct was generally, in’essentials, blameless; but this praise was now 
no longer bestowed, and, unfortunately, was no longer deserved. The 
general fate of sects is to obtain a high reputation for sanctity while 


* See Penn’s New Witnesses proved Old Heretics. and Muggleton’s works, 
passim. 


106 MISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


they are oppressed, and to lose it as soon as they become powerful; 
and the reason is obvious. It is seldom that a man enrolls himself 
in a proscribed body from any but conscientious motives. Such a 
body, therefore, is composed, with scarcely an exception, of sincere 
persons. The most rigid discipline that can be enforced within a 
religious society is a very feeble instrument of purification, when 
compared with a little sharp persecution from without. We may be 
certain that very few persons, not seriously impressed by religious 
convictions, applied for baptism while Diocletian was vexing the 
Church, or joined themselves to Protestant congregations at the risk 
of being burned by Bonner. But, when a sect becomes powerful, 
when its favour is the road to riches and. dignities, worldly and am- 
bitious men crowd into it, talk its language, conform strictly to its 
ritual, mimic its peculiarities, and frequently go beyond its honest 
members in all the outward indications of zeal. No discernment, no 
watchfulness, on the part of ecclesiastical rulers, can prevent the in- 
trusion of such false brethren. The tares and wheat must grow to- 
gether. Soon the world begins to find out that the godly are not bet- 
ter than other men, and argues, with some justice, that, if not better, 
they must be much worse. In no long time all those signs which 
were formerly regarded as characteristic of a saint are regarded as 
characteristic of a knave. 

Thus it was with the English Nonconformists. They had been 
oppressed; and oppression had kept them a pure body. ‘They then 
became supreme in the state. No man could hope to rise to emi- 
nence agd command but by their favour. ‘Their favour was to be 
gained only by exchanging with them the signs and passwords of 
spiritual fraternity. One of the first resolutions adopted by Bare- 
bones’ Parliament, the most intensely Puritanical of all our political 
assemblies, was that no person should be admitted into the public 
service till the House should be satisfied of his real godliness. What 
were then considered as the signs of real godliness, the sadcoloured 
dress, the sour look, the straight hair, the nasal whine, the speech 
interspersed with quaint texts, the Sunday, gloomy as a Pharisaical 
Sabbath, were easily imitated by men to whom all religions were the 
same. The sincere Puritans soon found themselves lost in a multi-” 
tude, not merely of men of the world, but of the very worst sort of 
men of the world. For the most notorious libertine who had fought 
under the royal standard might justly be thought virtuous when com- 
pared with some of those who, while they talked about sweet experi- 
ences and comfortable scriptures, lived in the constant practice of 
fraud, rapacity, and secret debauchery. ‘The people, with a rashness 
which we may justly lament, but at which we cannot wonder, 
formed their estimate of the whole body from these hypocrites. The 
theology, the manners, the dialect of the Puritan were thus associated 
in the public mind with the darkest and meanest vices. As soon as 
the Restoration had made it safe to avow enmity to the party which 


Li ae HISTORY OF. ENGLAND. 107 


had so long been predominant, a general outcry against Puritanism 
rose from every corner of the kingdom, and was often swollen by 
the voices of those very dissemblers whose villany had brought dis- 
grace on the Puritan name. 

Thus the two great parties, which, after a long contest, had for a’ 
moment concurred in restoring monarchy, were, both in politics and 
in religion, again opposed to each other. The great body of the na- 

tion leaned to the Royalists. The crimes of Strafford and Laud, the 
excesses of the Star Chamber and of the High Commission, the great 
services which the Long Parliament had, during the first year of its 
existence, rendered to the state, had faded from the minds of men. 
The execution of Charles the First, the sullen tyranny of the Rump, 
the violence of the army, were remembered with loathing; and the 
‘multitude was inclined to hold all who had withstood the late King 
_ responsible for his death and for the subsequent disasters. 

The House of Commons, having been elected while the Presbyte- 
rians were dominant, by no means represented the general sense of 
the people. Most of the members, while execrating Cromwell and 
Bradshaw, reverenced the memory of Essex and of Pym. One 
sturdy Cavalier, who ventured to declare that all who had drawn the 
sword against Charles the First were as much traitors as those who 


had cut off his head, was called to order, placed at the bar, and rep- 


rimanded by the Speaker. The gencral wish of the House undoubt- 
edly was to settle the ecclesiastical disputes in a manner satisfactory 
to the moderate Puritans. But to such a settlement both the court 
and the nation were averse. 
_ The restored King was at this time more loved by the people than 


_ any of his predecessors had ever been. The calamities of his house, 


the heroic death of his father, his own long sufferings and romantic 
adventures, made him an object of tender interest. His return had 
delivered the country from an intolerable bondage. Recalled by the 
- voice of both the contending factions, he was in a position which 
enabled him to arbitrate between them; and in some respects he was 
well qualified for the task. He had received from nature excellent 
parts anda happy temper. His education had been such as might 
have been expected to develope his understanding, and to form him 
to the practice of every public and private virtue. He had passed 
through all varieties of fortune, and had seen both sides of human 
nature. He had, while very young, been driven forth from a palace 
to a life of exile, penury, and danger. He had, at the age when the 
mind and body are in their highest perfection, and when the first 
_ €ffervescence of boyish passions should have subsided, been recalled 
from his wanderings to wear a crown. He had been taught by 


bitter experience how much baseness, perfidy, and ingratitude may 


bn 


lie hid under the obsequious demeanor of courtiers. He had found, 
on the other hand, in the huts of the poorest, true nobility of soul. 
When wealth was offered to any who would betray him, when death 


108 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


was denounced against all who should shelter him, cuttagers and 

serving men had kept his secret truly, and had kissed his hand 

under his mean disguises with as much reverence as if he had been 

seated on his ancestral throne. From such a school it might have 

been expected that a young man who wanted neither abilities nor 

amiable qualities would have come forth a great and good King. 

Charles came forth from that school with social habits, with polite 

and engaging manners, and with some talent for lively conversation, 

addicted beyond measure to sensual indulgence, fond of sauntering 
and of frivolous amusements, incapable of selfdenial and of exertion, 

without faith in human virtue or in human attachment, without. 
desire of renown, and without sensibility to reproach. According to 
him, every person was to be bought: but some people haggled more 
about their price than others; and when this haggling was very ob- 

stinate and very skilful it was called by some fine name. ‘The chief 

trick by which clever men kept up the price of their abilities was 
called integrity. The chief trick by which handsome women kept 
up the price of their beauty was called modesty. The love of God, 

the love of country, the love of family, the love of friends, were 
phrases of the same sort, delicate and convenient synonymes for the 
love of self. Thinking thus of mankind, Charles naturally cared very 
little what they thought of him. Honour and shame were scarcely 
more to him than light and darkness to the blind. His contempt of 
flattery has been highly commended, but seems, when viewed in 

counection with the rest of his character, to deserve no commendation. 

It is possible to be below flattery as well as above it. One who trusts 
nobody will not trust sycophants. One who does not value real 
glory will not value its counterfeit. 

It is creditable to Charles’s temper that, ill as he thought of his 
species, he never became a misanthrope. He saw little in men but 
what was hateful. Yet he did not hate them. Nay, he was so far 
humane that it was highly disagreeable to him to see their sufferings or 
to hear their complaints. This, however, isa sort of humanity which, 
though amiable and laudable in a private man whose power to help 
or hurt is bounded by a narrow circle, has in princes often been 
rather a vice than a virtue. More than one well disposed ruler has 
given up whole provinces to rapine and oppression, merely from a 
wish to see none but happy faces round his own board and his own 
walks. No man is fit to govern great societies who hesitates about 
disobliging the few who have access to him, for the sake of the many 
whom he will never see. The facility of Charles was such as has 
perhaps never been found in any man of equal sense. He was a 
slave without being a dupe. Worthless men and women, to the very 
bottom of whose hearts he saw, and whom he knew to be destitute 
of affection for him and undeserving of his confidence, could easily 
wheedle him out of titles, places, domains, state secrets and pardons. 
Tie bestowed much; yet he neither enjoyed the pleasure nor acquired 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 109 


the fame of beneficence. He never gave spontaneously; but it was 
painful for him to refuse. The consequence was that his bounty 
generally went, not to those who deserved it best, nor even to those 
whom he liked best, but to the most shameless and importunate 
suitor who could obtain an audience. 

The motives which governed the political conduct of Charles the 
Second differed widely from those by which his predecessor and _ his 
successor were actuated. He was not a man to be imposed upon by . 
the patriarchal theory of government and the doctrine of divine right. 
He was utterly without ambition. He detested business, and would 
sooner have abdicated his crown than have undergone the trouble of 
really directing the administration. Such was his aversion to toil, 
and such his ignorance of affairs, that the very clerks who attended 
him when he sate in council could not refrain from sneering at his 
frivolous remarks, and at his childish impatience. Neither gratitude 


hor revenge had any share in determining his course; for never was 


there a mind on which both services and injuries left such faint and 
transitory impressions. He wished merely to be a King such as Lewis 
the Fifteenth of France afterwards was; a King who could draw with- 
out limit on the treasury for the gratification of his private tastes, 
who could hire with wealth and honours persons capable of assisting 
him to kill the time, and who, even when the state was brought by 
maladministration to the depths of humiliation and to the brink of 


_ ruin, could still exclude unwelcome truth from the purlieus of his own 


seraglio, and refuse to see and hear whatever might disturb his Juxu- 
rious repose. For these ends, and for these ends alone, he wished to 
obtain arbitrary power, if it could be obtained without risk or trouble. 
In the religious disputes which divided his Protestant subjects his 
conscience was not at all interested. For his opinions oscillated in 
contented suspense between infidelity and Popery. But, though his 
conscience was neutral in the quarrel between the Episcopalians and 
the Presbyterians, his taste was by no means so. His favourite vices 
were precisely those to which the Puritans were least indulgent. He 
could not get through one day without the help of diversions which 
the Puritans regarded as sinful. As aman eminently well bred, and 
keenly sensible of the ridiculous, he was moved to contemptuous 
mirth by the Puritan oddities. He had indeed some reason to dislike 
the rigid sect. He had, at the age when the passions are most im- 
petuous and when levity is most pardonable, spent some months in 
Scotland, a King in name, but in fact a state prisoner in the hands of 
austere Presbyterians. Not content with requiring him to conform to 
their worship and to subscribe their Covenant, they had watched all 
his motions, and lectured him on all his youthful follies. He had 


been compelled to give reluctant attendance at endless prayers and 


sermons, and might think himself fortunate when he was not inso- 
lently reminded from the pulpit of his own frailties, of his father’s 


_ tyranny, and of iis mother’s idolatry. Indeed he had been so misera- 


ha 


110 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


ble during this part of his life that the defeat which made him again 
a wanderer might be regarded asa deliverance rather than as a calam- 
ity. Under the influence of such feelings as these Charles was de- 
sirous to depress the party which had resisted his father. 

The King’s brother, James Duke of York, took the same side, 
Though a libertine, James was diligent, methodieal, and fond of au- 
thority and business. His understanding was singularly slow and 
narrow, and his temper obstinate, harsh, and unforgiving. That 
such a prince should have looked with no good will on the free insti- 
tutions of England, and on the party which was peculiarly zealous 
for those institutions, can excite no surprise. As yet the Duke pro- 
fessed himself a member of the Anglican Church: but he had already 
shown inclinations which had seriously alarmed good Protestants. 

The person on whom devolved at this time the greatest part of the 
labour of governing was Edward Hyde, Chancellor of the realm, who 
was soon created Karl of Clarendon. .The respect which we justly 
feel for Clarendon as a writer must not blind us to the faults which 
he committed asa statesman. Some of those faults, however, are ex-— 
plained and excused by the unfortunate position in which he stood. 
He had, during the first year of the Long Parliament, been honourably 
distinguished among the senators who laboured to redress the griev- 
ances of the nation. One of the most odious of those grievances, the 
Council of York, had been removed in consequence chietly of his 
exertions. When the great schism took place, when the reforming 
party and the conservative party first appeared marshalled against 
each other, he, with many wise and good men, took the conservative 
side. He thenceforward followed the fortunes of the court, enjoyed 
as large a share of the confidence of Charles the First as the reserved 
nature and tortuous policy of that prince allowed to any minister, and 
subsequently shared the exile and directed the political conduct of 
Charles the Second. At the Restoration Hyde became chief minister. 
In afew months it was announced that he was closely related by 
affinity to the royal house. His daughter had become, by a secret 
marriage, Duchess of York. His grandchildren might perhaps wear 
the crown. He was raised by this illustrious connection over the 
heads of the old nobility of the land, and was for a time supposed to 
be allpowerful. In some respects he was well fitted for his great 
place. No man wrote abler state papers. No man spoke with more 
weight and dignity in Council and in Parliament. No man was 
better acquainted with general maxims of statecraft. No man ob- 
served the varieties of character with a more discriminating eye. It 
must be added that he had'a strong sense of moral and religious ob- 
ligation, a sincere reverence for the laws of his country, and a con- 
scientious regard for the honour and interest of the Crown. But his 
temper was sour, arrogant, and impatient of opposition. Above all, 
he had been long an exile; and this circumstance alone would have 
completely disqualified him for the supreme direction of affairs. It 


ts: 


ig - HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 111 


is scarcely possible that a politician, who has been compelled by civil 


troubles to go into banishment, and to pass many of the best years of 
his life abroad, can be fit, on the day on which he returns to his 
native land, to be at the head of the government. Clarendon was no 
‘exception to thisrule. He had left England with a mind heated by 
a fierce conflict which had ended in the downfall of his party and of 
his own fortunes. From 1646 to 1660 he had lived beyond sea, look- 
ing on all that passed at home from a great distance, and through a 
false medium. His notions of public affairs were necessarily derived 
from the reports of plotters, many of whom were ruined and desper- 
ate men. Lvents naturally seemed to him auspicious, not in propor- 
tion as they increased the prosperity and glory of the nation, but in 
proportion as they tended to hasten the hour of his own return. His 
wish, a wish which he has not disguised, was that, till his country- 
men brought back the old line, they might never enjoy quiet or free- 
dom. At length he returned; and, without having a single week to 
look about him, to mix with society, to note the changes which four- 
teen eventful years had produced in the national character and feel- 
ings, he was at once set to rule the state. Im such circumstances, a _ 
minister of the greatest tact and docility would probably have fallen 
into serious errors. But tact and docility made no part of the charac- 
ter of Clarendon. To him England was still the England of his - 
youth; and he sternly frowned down every theory and every practice 
“which had sprung up during his own exile. Though he was far 
from meditating any attack on the ancient and undoubted power of 
the House of Commons, he saw with extreme uneasiness the growth 
of that power. The royal prerogative, for which he had long suffer- 
ed, and by which he had at length been raised to wealth and dignity, 
‘was sacred in his eyes. The Roundheads he regarded both with po- 
litical and with personal aversion. To the Anglican Church he had 
always been strongly attached, and had repeatedly, where her inter- 
ests were concerned, separated himself with regret from his dearest 


friends. His zeal for Episcopacy and for the Book of Common 


Prayer was now more ardent than ever, and was mingled with a vin- 
dictive hatred of the Puritans, which did him little honour either as 


~ astatesman or as a Christian. 


While the House of Commons which had recalled the royal family 
Was sitting, it was impossible to effect the re-establishment of the old 
ecclesiastical system. Not only were the intentions of the court 
jtrictly concealed, but assurances which quieted the minds of the 
moderate Presbyterians were given by the King in the most solemn 
-TIaanner. He had promised, before his restoration, that he would 
grant liberty of conscience to his subjects. He now repeated that 
promise, and added a promise to use his best endeavours for the pur- 


_ pose of effecting a compromise between the contending sects. He 


wished, he said, to see the spiritual jurisdiction divided between 


bishops and synods. The Liturgy should be revised by a body of 


¢ 


ee 


t 
4 


112 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


learned divines, one-half of whom should be Presbyterians. The — 
questions respecting the surplice, the posture at the Eucharist, and 
the sign of the cross in baptism, should be settled in a way which 
would set tender consciences at ease. When the King had thus laid 
asleep the vigilance of those whom he most feared, he dissolved the 
Parliament. He had already given his assent to an act by which an 
amnesty was granted, with few exceptions, to all who, during the © 
late troubles, had been guilty of political offences. He had also ob- 
tained from the Commons a grant for life of taxes, the annual product 
of which was estimated at twelve hundred thousand pounds. The 
actual income, indeed, during some years, amounted to little more 
than a million: but this sum, together with the hereditary revenue of 
the crown, was then sufficient to defray the expenses of the govern- | 
ment in time of peace. Nothing was allowed for a standing army, 
The nation was sick of the very name; and the least mention of such 
a force would have incensed and alarmed all parties. 

Early in 1661 took place a general election. The people were mad 
with loyal enthusiasm. The capital was excited by preparations for 
the most splendid coronation that had ever been known. ‘The re- 
sult was that a body of representatives was returned, such as Eng- 
Jand had never yet seen. A large proportion of the successful candi- 
dates were men who had fought for the Crown and the Church, and 
whose minds had been exasperated by many injuries and insults suf- 
fered at the hands of the Roundheads. When the members met, the 
passions which animated each individually acquired new strength 
from sympathy. ‘The House of Commons was, during some years, 
more zealous for royalty than the King, more zealous for episcopacy 
than the Bishops. Charles and Clarendon were almost terrified at 
the completeness of their own success, They found themselves in a 
situation not unlike that in which Lewis the Kighteenth and the 
Duke of Richelieu were placed while the Chamber of 1815 was sitting. 
Even if the King had been desirous to fulfil the promises which he 
had made to the Presbyterians, it would have been out of his power 
to do so. It was indeed only by the strong exertion of his influence 
that he could prevent the victorious Cavaliers from rescinding the 
a e indemnity, and retaliating without mercy all that they had suf- 

erec 

The Commons began by resolving that every member should, on ~ 
pain of expulsion, take the sacrament according to the form pre- 
scribed by the old Liturgy, and that the Covenant should be burned ~ 
by the hangman in Palace Yard. An act was passed, which not only | 
acknowledged the power of the sword to be solely in the King, but 
declared that in no extremity whatever could the two Houses be 
justified in withstanding him by force. Another act was passed — 
which required every ofticer of a corporation to receive the Eucharist * 
according to the rites of the Church of England, and to swear that ~ 
he held resistance to the King’s authority to be in all cases unlawful. 


iis tins 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 113 


A few hotheaded men wished to bringin a bill, which should at once 
annul all the statutes passed by the Long Parliament, and should re- 
store the Star Chamber and the High Commission; but the reaction, 
violent as it was, did not proceed quite to this length. It still con- 
tinued to be the law that a Parliament should be held every three 
years: but the stringent clauses which directed the returning officers 
to proceed to election at the proper time, even without the royal writ, 
were repealed. ‘The Bishops were restored to their seats in the Upper 
House. The old ecclesiastical polity and the old Liturgy were re- 
vived without any modification which had any tendency to conciliate 
even the most reasonable Presbyterians. Episcopal ordination was 
now, for the first time, made an indispensable qualification for 
church preferment. About two thousand ministers of religion, 
whose conscience did not suffer them to conform, were driven from 
their benefices in one day. The dominant party exultingly reminded 
the sufferers that the Long Parliament, when at the height of pow- 
er, had turned out a still great number of Royalist divines. The re- 
proach was but too well founded: but the Long Parliament had at 
least allowed to the divines whom it ejected a provision sufiicient to 
keep them from starving; and this example the Cavaliers, intoxicated 
with animosity, had not the justice and humanity to follow. 

Then came penal statutes against Nonconformists, statutes for 
which precedents might too easily be found in the Puritan legislation, 
but to which the King could not give his assent without a breach of 
promises publicly made, in the most important crisis of his life, to 
those on whom his fate depended. The Presbyterians, in extreme 
distress and terror, fled to the foot of the throne, and pleaded their 
recent services and the royal faith solemnly and repeatedly plighted. 
The King wavered. He could not deny his own hand and seal. He 
could not but be conscious that he owed much to the petitioners. He 
was little in the habit of resisting importunate solicitation. His 
temper was not that of a persecutor. He disliked the Puritans in- 

_ deed; but in him dislike was a languid feeling, very little resembling 
the energetic hatred which had burned in the heart of the Laud. He 
was, moreover, partial to the Roman Catholic religion; and he knew 
that it would be impossible to grant liberty of worship to the pro- 
fessors of that religion without extending the same indulgence to 
Protestant dissenters. He therefore made a feeble attempt to restrain 
the intolerant zeal of the House of Commons; but that House was 
under the influence of far deeper convictions and far stronger passions 
than his own. After a faint struggle he yielded, and passed, with 
the show of alacrity, a series of odious acts against the separatists. It 
Was made a crime toattend a dissenting place of worship. A single 
justice of the peace might convict without a jury, and might, for the 
third offence, pass sentence of transportation beyond the sea for seven 

years. With refined cruelty it was provided that the offender should 
not be transported to New England, where he was likely to find 


\ 
, 


114 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. " 


sympathising friends. If he returned to his own country before the 
expiration of his term of exile, he was liable to capital punishment. 
A new and most unreasonable test was imposed on divines who had 
been deprived of their benefices for nonconformity; and all who re- 
fused to take that test were prohibited from coming within five miles 
of any town which was governed by a corporation, of any town which 
was represented in Parliament, or of any town where they had them- 
selves resided as ministers. The magistrates, by whom these rigor- 
ous statutes were to be enforced, were in genera] men inflamed by 
party spirit and by the remembrance of wrongs suffered in the time 
of the commonwealth. The gaols were therefore soon crowded with 
dissenters; and, among the sufferers, were some of whose genius and 
virtue any Christian society might well be proud. : 


The Church of England was not ungrateful for the protection 


which she received from the government. rom the first day of her 
existence, she had been attached to monarchy. But, during the 
quarter of a century which followed the Restoration, her zeal for 
royal authority and hereditary right passed all bounds. She had suf- 
fered with the House of Stuart. She had been restored with that 
House. She was connected with it by common interests, friendships, 
and enmities. It seemed impossible that a day could ever come when 
the ties which bound her to the children of her august martyr would 
be sundered, and when the royalty in which she gloried would cease 
to be a pleasing and profitable duty. She accordingly magnified in 
fulsome phrase that prerogative which was constantly employed 
to defend and to aggrandise her, and reprobated, much at her ease, 
the depravity of those whom oppression, from which she was exempt, 
had goaded to rebellion. Her favourite theme was the doctrine of 
non-resistance. That doctrine she taught without any qualification, 
and followed out to all its extreme consequences. ‘Her disciples were 
never weary of repeating that in no conceivable case, not even if 
England were cursed with a King resembling Busiris or Phalaris, 
with a King who, in defiance of law, and without the pretence of 
justice, should daily doom: hundreds of innocent victims to torture 
aud death, would all the Estates of the realm united be justified in 
withstanding his tyranny by physical force. Happily the principles 
of human nature afford abundant security that such theories will 
never be more than theories. The day of trial came; and the very 
men who had most loudly and most sincerely professed this extrava- 
gant loyalty were, in every county of England, arrayed in arms 
against the throne. 

Property all over the kinndom was now again changing hands. 
The national sales, not having been confirmed by Act of Parliament, 
were regarded by the tribunals as nullities. The bishops, the deans, 
the chapters, the Royalist nobility and gentry, reentered on their con. 
fiscated estates, and ejected even purchasers who had given fair prices, 
‘(he losses which the Cavaliers had sustained during the ascendency 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 115 


of their opponents were thus in part repaired; butin part only. All 
actions for mesne profits were effectually barred by the general am- 
nesty; and the numerous Royalists, who, in order to discharge fines 
imposed by the Long Parliament, or in order to purchase the favour 
of powerful Roundheads, had sold lands for much less than the real 
value, were not relieved from the legal consequences of their own 
acts. 

While these changes were in progress, a change still more impor- 
tant took place in the morals and manners of the community. ‘Those 
passions and tastes which, under the rule of the Puritans, had been 
sternly repressed, and, if gratified at all, had been gratified by stealth, 
broke forth with ungovernable violence as soon as the check was 
withdrawn. Men flew to frivolous amusements and to criminal 
pleasures with the greediness which long and enforced abstinence 
naturally produces. Little restraint was imposed by public opinion. 
For the nation, nauseated with cant, suspicious of all pretensions to 
sanctity, and still smarting from the recent tyranny of rulers austere 
in life and powerful in prayer, looked for a time with complacency 
on the softer and gayer vices. Still less restraint was imposed by the 

government. Indeed there was no excess which was not encouraged 
by the ostentatious profligacy of the King and of his favourite cour- 
tiers. A few counsellors of Charles the First, who were now no longer 
young, retained the decorous gravity which had been thirty years be- 
fore in fashion at Whitehall. Such were Clarendon himself, and his 
friends, Thomas Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, Lord Treasurer, 
and James Butler, Duke of Ormond, who, having through many 
vicissitudes struggled gallantly for the royal cause in Ireland, now 
governed that kingdom as Lord Lieutenant. But neither the memory 
of the services of these men, nor their great power in the state, could 
_ protect them from the sarcasms which modish vice loves to dart at 
_ obsolete virtue. The praise of politeness and vivacity could now 
scarcely be obtained except by some violation of decorum. Talents 
great and various assisted to spread the contagion. Ethical philos- 
ophy had recently taken a form well suited to please a generation 
equally devoted to monarchy and to vice. Thomas Hobbes had, in 
language more precise and luminous than has ever been employed by 
any other metaphysical writer, maintained that the will of the prince 
was the standard of right and wrong, and that every subject ought to 
be ready to profess Popery, Mahometanism, or Paganism, at the royal 
command. Thousands who were incompetent to appreciate what 
was really valuable in his speculations, eagerly welcomed a theory 
which, while it exalted the kingly office, relaxed the obligations of 
_ morality, and degraded religion into a mere affair of state. Hobbism 
soon became an almost essential part of the character of the fine gentle- 
man. All the lighter kinds of literature were deeply tainted by the 
prevailing licentiousness. Poetry stooped to be the pandar of every 
low desire. Ridicule, instead of putting guilt and error to the blush, 


116 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


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turned her formidable shafts against innocence and truth. The re- — 


stored Church contended indeed against the prevailing immorality, 
but contended feebly, and with half a heart. It was necessary to the 
decorum of her character that she should admonish her erring chil- 
dren: but her admonitions were given in a somewhat perfunctory 
manner. Her attention was elsewhere engaged. Her whole soul was 
in the work of crushing the Puritans, and of teaching her disciples to 
give unto Ceesar the things which were Cesar’s. She had been pil- 
laged and oppressed by the party which preached an austere morality. 
She had been restored to opulence and honour by libertines. Little 
as the men of mirth and fashion were disposed to shape their lives 
according to her precepts, they were yet ready to fight knee deep in 
blood for her cathedrals and places, for every line of her rubric and 
every thread of her vestments. If the debauched Cavalier haunted 
brothels and gambling houses, he at least avoided conventicles. If 
he never spoke without uttering ribaldry and blasphemy, he made 
some amends by his cagerness to send Baxter and Howe to gaol for 
preaching and praying. Thus the clergy, for a time, made war on 
schism with so much vigour that they had little leisure to make war 
on vice. The ribaldry of Etherege and Wyckerley was, in the pres- 
ence and under the special sanction of the head of the Church, pub- 
licly recited by female lips in female ears, while the author of the 
Pilgrim’s Progress languished in a dungeon for the crime of proclaim- 
ing the gospel to the poor. It is an unquestionable and a most in- 
structive fact that the years during which the political power of the 
Anglican hierarchy was in the zenith were precisely the years dur- 
ing which national virtue was at the lowest point. 

Scarcely any rank or profession escaped the infection of the pre- 


vailing immorality; but those persons who made politics their busi. 


ness were perhaps the most corrupt part of the corrupt society. For 
they were exposed, not only to the same noxious influences which 
affected the nation generally, but also to a taint of a peculiar and of 
a most malignant kind. Their character had been formed amidst 
frequent and violent revolutions and counterrevolutions, In the 
course of a few years they had seen the ecclesiastical and civil polity 


of their country repeatedly changed. They had seen an Episcopal. 


Church persecuting Puritans, a Puritan Church persecuting Episco- 
palians, and an Episcopal Church persecuting Puritans again. ‘They 
had seen hereditary monarchy abolished and restored. They had 
seen the Long Parliament thrice supreme in the state, and thrice dis- 
solved amidst the curses and laughter of millions. They had seen a 
new dynasty rapidly rising to the height of power and glory, and 
then on a sudden hurled down from the chair of state without a 


struggle. They had seen a new representative system devised, tried — 


and abandoned. They had seen a new House of Lords created and 
scattered. They had seen great masses of property violently trans- 
ferred from Cavaliers to Roundheads, and from Roundheads back to 


a i 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 117 


Cavaliers. During these events no man could be a stirring and 
thriving politician who was not prepared to change with every change 
of fortune. It was only in retirement that any person could long 
keep the character either of a steady Royalist or of a steady Repub- 
‘lican. One who, in such an age, is determined to attain civil great- 
ness must renounce all thoughts of consistency. Instead of affecting 
immutability in the midst of endless mutation, he must be always on 
the watch for the indications of a coming reaction. He must seize 
the exact moment for deserting a-failing cause. Having gone all 
lengths with a fraction while it was uppermost, he must suddenly ex- 
tricate himself from it when its difficulties begin, must assail it, must 
persecute it, must enter on a new career of power and prosperity in 
“company with new associates. His situation naturally developes in 
him to the highest degree a peculiar class of abilities and a pecuiiar 
class of vices. He becomes quick of observation and fertile of re- 
source. He catches without effort the tone of any sect or party 
with which he chances to mingle. He discerns the signs of the 
times with a sagacity which to the multitude appears miraculous, 
with a sagacity resembling that with which a veteran police ofticer 
pursues the faintest indications of crime, or with which a Mohawk 
warrior follows a track through the woods. But we shall seldom 
find, in astatesman so trained, integrity, constancy, any of the virtues 
of the noble family of Truth. Hehas no faith in any doctrine, no 
zeal for any cause. He hasseen so many old institutions swept away, 
that he has no reverence for prescription. He has seen so many new 
institutions, from which much had been expected, produce mere dis- 
appointment, that he has no hope of improvement. He sneers alike 
at those who are anxious topreserve and at those who are eager to 
reform. There is nothing in the state which he could not, without a 
scruple or a blush, join in defending or in destroying. Fidelity to 
opinions and to friends seems to him mere dulness and wrongheaded- 
ness. Politics he regards, not as a science of which the object is the 
happiness of mankind, but as an exciting game of mixed chance and 
skill, at which a dexterous and lucky player may,win an estate, a 
_ coronet, perhaps a crown, and at which one rash move may lead to 
the loss of fortune and of life. Ambition, which, in good times, and 
in good minds, is half a virtue, now, disjoined from every elevated 
and philanthropic sentiment, becomes a selfish cupidity scarcely less 
ignoble than avarice. Among those politicians who, from the Restora- 
tion to the accession of the House of Hanover, were at the head of the 
great parties in the state, very few can be named whose reputation is 
not stained by what, in our age, would be called gross perfidy and cor- 
ruption. It is scarcely an exaggeration to say that the most unprin- 
cipled, public men who have taken part in affairs within our memory 
would, if tried by the standard which was in fashion during the latter 
part of the seventeenth century, deserve to be regarded as scrupulous 
and disinterested. 


i 


118 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


While these political, religious, and moral changes were taking 
place in England, the Royal authority had been without difficulty re- 
established in every other part of the British islands. In Scotland 
the restoration of the Stuarts had been hailed with delight; for it 
was regarded as the restoration of national independence. And true 
it was that the yoke which Cromwell had imposed was, in appear- 
ance, taken away, that the Scottish Estates again met in their old 
hall at Edinburgh, and that the Senators of the College of Justice 
again administered the Scottish law according to the oldforms. Yet 
was the independence of the little kingdom necessarily rather nomi- 
nal than real; for, as long as the King had England on his side, he 
had nothing to apprehend from disaffection in his other dominions. 
He was now in such a situation that he could renew the attempt 
which had proved destructive to his father without any danger of 
his father’s fate. Charles the First had tried to force his. own re- 
ligion by his regal power on the Scots at a moment when both his 
religion and his regal power were unpopular in England; and he had 
not only failed, but had raised troubles which had ultimately cost iim 
his crown and his head. Times had now changed: England was 
zealous for monarchy and prelacy; and therefore the scheme which 
had formerly been in the highest degree imprudent might be resumed 
with little risk to the throne. The government resolved to set up a 
prelatical church in Scotland. The design was disapproved by 
every Scotchman whose judgment was entitled to respect. Some 
Scottish statesmen who were zealous for the King’s prerogative had 
been bred Presbyterians. Though little troubled with scruples, they 
retained a preference for the religion of their childhood; and they 
well knew how strong a hold that religion had on the hearts of their 
countrymen. ‘They remonstrated strongly: but, when they found 
that they remonstrated in vain, they had not virtue enough to per- 
sist in an opposition which would have given offence to their master; 
and several of them stooped to the wickedness and baseness of 
persecuting what in their consciences they believed to be the purest 
form of Christianity. The Scottish Parliament was so constituted 
that it had scarcely ever offered any serious opposition even to Kings 
much weaker than Charles then was. Episcopacy, therefore, was 
established by law. As to the form of worship, a large discretion 
was left to the clergy. In some churches the English Liturgy was 
used. In others, the ministers selected from that Liturgy such pray- 
ers and thanksgivings as were likely to be least offensive to the 
people. But in general the doxology was sung at the close of public 
worship; and the Apostles’ Creed was recited when baptism was ad- 
ministered. By the great body of the Scottish nation the new 
Church was detested both as superstitious and as foreign; as tainted 
with the corruptions of Rome, and asa mark of the predominance 
of England. There was, however, no general insurrection. The 
country was not what it had been twenty-two years before. Disas- 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 119 


— ‘ 
a 
Yer 


trous war and alien domination had tamed the spirit of the people. 
The aristocracy, which was held in great honour by the middle 
class and by the populace, had put itself at the head of the move- 
ment against Charles the First, but proved obsequious to Charles the 
Second. From the English Puritans no aid was now to be expected. 
They were a feeble party, proscribed both by law and by public 
opinion. The bulk of the Scottish nation, therefore, sullenly sub- 
‘mitted, and, with many misgivings of conscience, attended the 
ministrations of the Episcopal clergy, or of Presbyterian divines who 
had consented to accept from the government a half toleration, 
known by the name of the Indulgence. But there were, particularly 
in the western lowlands, many fierce and resolute men who held 
that the obligation to observe the Covenant was paramount to the 
obligation to obey the magistrate. These people, in defiance of the 
Jaw, persisted in meeting to worship God after their own fashion. 
The Indulgence they regarded, not as a partial reparation of the 
wrongs inflicted by the State on the Church, but as a new wrong, 
the more odious because it was disguised under the appearance of a 
‘benefit. Persecution, they said, could only kill the body; but the 
black Indulgence was deadly to the soul. Driven from the towns, 
they assembled on heaths and mountains. Attacked by the civil 
power, they without scruple repelled force by force. At every con- 
-venticle they mustered in arms. They repeatedly broke out into 
open rebellion. They were easily defeated, and mercilessly punished: 
but neither defeat nor punishment could subdue their spirit. Hunted 
down like wild beasts, tortured till their bones were beaten flat, im- 
prisoned by hundreds, hanged by scores, exposed at one time to the 
license of soldiers from England, abandoned at another time to the 
“mercy of troops of marauders from the Highlands, they still stood 
at bay in a mood so savage that the boldest and mightiest oppressor 
could not but dread the audacity of their despair. 
Such was, during the reign of Charles the Second, the state of 
Scotland. Ireland was not less distracted. In that island existed 
feuds, compared with which the hottest animosities of English poli- 
ticians were lukewarm. The enmity between the Irish Cavaliers 
and the Irish Roundheads was almost forgotten in the fiercer enmity 
which raged between the English and the Celtic races. The interval 
between the Episcopalian and the Presbyterian seemed to vanish, 
when compared with the interval which separated both from the 
' Papist. During the late civil troubles the greater part of the Irish 
soil had been transferred from the vanquished nation to the victors. 
To the favour of the Crown few either of the old or of the new oc- 
-cupants had any pretensions. The despoilers and the despoiled had, 
for the most part, been rebels alike. The government was soon per- 
plexed and wearied by the conflicting claims and mutual accusations 
of the two incensed factions. Those colonists among whom Crom- 
_ well had portioned out the conquered territory, and whose descend- 


120 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


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ants are called-Cromwellians, asserted that the aboriginal inhabitants ; 


were deadly enemies of the English nation under every dynasty, and 
of the Protestant religion in every form. They described and exag- 
gerated the atrocities which had disgraced the insurrection of Ulster: 
they urged the King to follow up with resolution the policy of the 
Protector; and they were not ashamed to hint that there would 


never be peace in Ireland till the old Irish race should be extirpated. — 


The Roman Catholics extenuated their offence as they best might, 
and expatiated in piteous language on the severity of their punish- 
ment, which, in truth, had not been lenient. They implored Charles 


not to confound the innocent with the guilty, and reminded him — 
that many of the guilty had atoned for their fault by returning to — 


their allegiance, and by defending his rights against the murderers of 
his father. The court, sick of the importunities of two parties, 
neither of which it had any reason to love, at length relieved itself 
from trouble by dictating a compromise. ‘That system, cruel, but 
most complete and energetic, by which Oliver had proposed to make 
the island thoroughly English, was abandoned. The Cromwellians 
were induced to relinquish a third part of their acquisitions. The 
land thus surrendered was capriciously divided among claimants 


whom the government chose to favour. But great numbers who — 


protested that they were innocent of all disloyalty, and some persons 
who boasted that their loyalty had been signally displayed, obtained 
neither restitution nor compensation, and filled France and Spain 
with outcries against the injustice and ingratitude of the House of 
Stuart. 

Meantime the government had, even in England, ceased to be pop- 
ular. The Royalists had begun to quarrel with the court and with 
each other; and the party which had been vanquished, trampled 
down, and, as it seemed, annihilated, but which had still retained a 
strong principle of life, again raised its head, and renewed the inter- 
minable war. 


Had the administration been faultless, the enthusiasm with which — 


the return of the King and the termination of the military tyranny 
had been hailed could not have been permanent. For it is the law 
of our nature that such fits of excitement shall always be followed 
by remissions. The manner in which the court abused its victory 


made the remission speedy and complete. Every moderate man was © 


shocked by the insolence, cruelty, and perfidy with which the Non- 


conformists were treated. The penal laws had effectually purged 
the oppressed party of those insincere members whose vices had dis-— 


graced it, and had made it again an honest and pious body of men. 
The Puritan, a conqueror, a ruler, a persecutor, a sequestrator, had 


been detested. The Puritan, betrayed and evil entreated, deserted — 
by all the timeservers who, in his prosperity, had claimed brother- — 


hood with him, hunted from his home, forbidden under severe penal- 


ties to pray or receive the sacrament according to his conscience, yet — 


/ 


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HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 121 


‘still firm in his resolution to obey God rather than man, was, in 
spite of some unpleasing recollections, an object of pity and respect 
to well constituted minds. These feelings became stronger when it 
was noised abroad that the court was not disposed to treat Papists 
with the same rigour which had been shown to Presbyterians. A 
vague suspicion that the King and the Duke were not sincere Prot- 
estants sprang up and gathered strength. Many persons too who 
had been disgusted by the austerity and hypocrisy of the Saints of 
the Commonwealth began to be still more disgusted by the open 
profligacy of the court and of the Cavaliers, and were disposed to 
doubt whether the sullen preciseness of Praise God Barebones might 
not be preferable to the outrageous profaneness and licentiousness of 
the Buckinghams and Sedleys. Even immoral men, who were not 
utterly destitute of sense and public spirit, complained that the gov- 
ernment treated the most serious matters as trifles, and made trifles 
its serious business. A King might be pardoned for amusing his 
leisure with wine, wit, and beauty. But it was intolerable that he 
should sink into a mere lounger and voluptuary, that the gravest 
_ affairs of state should be neglected, and that the public service should 
be starved and the finances deranged in order that harlots and para- 
sites might grow rich. 

A Jarge body of Royalists joined in these complaints, and added 
many sharp reflections on the King’s ingratitude. His whole rev- 
enue, indeed, would not have sufticed to reward them all in propor- 
tion to their own consciousness of desert. For to every distressed 
gentleman who had fought under Rupert or Derby his own services 
seemed eminently meritorious, and his own sufferings eminently se- 
vere. very one had flattered himself that, whatever became of the 
rest, he should be largely recompensed for all that he had Jost during 
the civil troubles, and that the restoration of the monarchy would be 
followed by the restoration of his own dilapidated fortunes. None 
of these expectants could restrain his indignation, when he found 
that he was as poor under the King as he had been under the Rump 
or the Protector. The negligence and extravagance of the court ex- 
_ cited the bitter indignation of these loyal veterans. They justly said 
that one half of what His Majesty squandered on concubines and 
buffoons would gladden the hearts of hundreds of old Cavaliers who, 
after cutting down their oaks and melting their plate to help his 
father, now wandered about in threadbare suits, and did not know 
where to turn for a meal. 

At the same time a sudden fall of rents took place. The income 
of every landed proprietor was diminished by five shillings in the 
en. The cry of agricultural distress rose from every shire in the 

ingdom; and for that distress the government was, as usual, held 
accountable. The gentry, compelled to retrench their expenses for a 
period, saw with indignation the increasing splendour and profusion 
of Whitehall, and were immovably fixed in the belief that the money 


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122 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


which ought to have supported their households had, by some inex- 
plicable process, gone to the favourites of the King. 
~The minds of men were now in.such a temper that every public 
act excited discontent. Charles had taken to wife Catharine Princess 
of Portugal. The marriage was generally disliked; and the murmurs 
became loud when it appeared that the King was not likely to have 
any legitimate posterity. Dunkirk, won by Oliver from Spain, was 
sold to Lewis the Fourteenth, King of France. This bargain excited 
general indignation. Englishmen were already beginning to observe 
with uneasiness the progress of the French power, and to regard the 
House of Bourbon with the same feeling with which their grand-— 
fathers had regarded the House of Austria. Was it wise, men asked, © 
at such a time, to make any addition to the strength of a monarchy 
already too formidable? Dunkirk was, moreover, prized by the 
people, not merely as a place of arms, and as a key to the Low Coun- 
tries, but also as a trophy of English valour. It was to the subjects 
of Charles what Calais had been to an earlier generation, and what 
the rock of Gibraltar, so manfully defended, through disastrous and 
perilous years, against the fleets and armies of a mighty coalition, is 
to ourselves. The plea of economy might have had some weight, if 
it had been urged by an economical government. But it was noto- 
rious that the charges of Dunkirk fell far short of the sums which 
were wasted at court in vice and folly. It seemed insupportable — 
that a sovereign, profuse beyond example in all that regarded his 
own pleasures, should be niggardly in all that regarded the safety and 
honour of the state. 

The public discontent was heightened, when it was found that, 
while Dunkirk was abandoned on the plea of economy, the fortress 
of Tangier, which was part of the dower of Queen Catharine, was re- 
paired and kept up at an enormous charge. ‘That place was asso- 
ciated with no recollections gratifying to the national pride: it could 
in no way promote the national interests: it involved us in inglorious, 
unprofitable, and interminable wars with tribes of half savage Mus- 
sulmans; and it was situated in a climate singularly unfavourable to 
the health and vigour of the English race. 

But the murmurs excited by these errors were faint, when compared 
with the clamours which soon broke forth. The government en- 
gaged in war with the United Provinces. The House of Commons — 
readily voted sums unexampled in our history, sums exceeding those 
which had supported the fleets and armies of Cromwell at the time 
when his power was the terror of all the world. But such was the 
extravagance, dishonesty, and incapacity of those who had succeeded 
to his authority, that this liberality proved worse than useless. ‘The 
sycophants of the court, ill qualified to contend against the great 
men who then directed the arms of Holland, against such a states- 
man as De Witt, and such a commander as De Ruyter, made for- 
tunes. rapidly, while the sailors mutinicd from very hunger, while 


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HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 123 


the dockyards were unguarded, while the ships were leaky and with- 


‘out rigging. It was at length determined to abandon all schemes of 
offensive war; and it soon appeared that even a defensive war was a 
task too hard for that administration. The Dutch fleet sailed up the 
Thames, and burned the ships of war which lay at Chatham. It 
was said that, on the very day of that great humiliation, the King 


_ feasted with the ladies of his seraglio, and amused himself with hunt- 


ing amoth about the supper room. ‘Then, at length, tardy justice 
was done to the memory of Oliver. . Everywhere men magnified his 
valour, genius and patriotism. Everywhere it was remembered how, © 


_when he ruled, all foreign powers had trembled at the name of Eng- 


land, how the States General, now so haughty, had crouched at his 
feet, and how, when it was known that he was no more, Amsterdam 
was lighted up as for a great deliverance, and children ran along the 
canals, shouting for joy that the Devil was dead. Even Royalists 
exclaimed that the state could be saved only by calling the old 
soldiers of the Commonwealth to arms. Soon the capital began to 
feel the miseries of a blockade. Fuel was scarcely to be procured. 
Tilbury Fort, the place where Elizabeth had, with manly spirit, 
hurled foul scorn at Parma and Spain, was insulted by the invaders. 
The roar of foreign guns was heard, for the first time, by the citi- 


zens of London. In the Council it was seriously proposed that, if 
the enemy advanced, the Tower should be abandoned. Great mul- 


titudes of people assembled in the streets crying out that England 


was bought and sold. The houses and carriages of the ministers 
were attacked by the populace; and it seemed likely that the govern- 
ment would have to deal at once with an invasion and with an insur- 
rection. The extreme danger, it is true, soon passed by. A treaty 
was concluded, very different from the treaties which Oliver had 
been in the habit of signing; and the nation was once more at peace, 
but was in a mood scarcely less fierce and sullen than in the days of 
shipmoney. 

The discontent engendered by maladministration was heightened 
by calamities which the best administration could not have averted. 


' While the ignominious war with Holland was raging, London suf- 


fered two great disasters, such as never, in so short a space of time, 
befel one city. A pestilence, surpassing in horror any that during 


three centuries had visited the island, swept away, in six months, 


more than a hundred thousand human beings. And scarcely had the 
dead cart ceased to go its rounds, when a fire, such as had not been 
known in Europe since the conflagration of Rome under Nero, laid 
in ruins the whole city, from the Tower to the Temple, and from the 
river to the purlieus of Smithfield. 

Had there been a general election while the nation was smarting 


under so many disgraces and misfortunes, it is probable that the 


Roundheads would have regained ascendency in the state. But the 


_ Parliament was still the Cavalier Parliament, chosen in the transport 


zi 


124 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


of loyalty which had followed the Restoration. Nevertheless it soon 
became evident that no English legislature, however loyal, would 
now consent to be merely what the legislature had been under the 
Tudors. From the death of Elizabeth to the eve of the civil war, the 
Puritans, who predominated in the representative body, had been 
constantly, by a dexterous use of the power of the purse, encroach- 
ing on the province of the executive government. The gentlemen 
who, after the Restoration, filled the Lower House, though they ab- 
horred the Puritan name, were well pleased to inherit the fruit of the 
Puritan policy. They were indeed most willing to employ the power 
which they possessed in the state for the purpose of making their 
King mighty and honoured, both at home and abroad: but with the 
power itself they were resolved not to part. The great English revo-- 
lution of the seventeenth century, that is to say, the transfer of the su- 
preme control of the executive administration from the crown to the 
House of Commons, was, through the whole long existence of this 
Parliament, proceeding noiselessly, but rapidly and steadily. Charles, 
kept poor by his follies and vices, wanted money. The Commons 
alone could legally grant him money. They could not be prevented 
from putting their own price on their grants. The price which they ~ 
put_on their grants was this, that they should be allowed to interfere 
with every one of the King’s prerogatives, to wring from him his 
consent to laws which he disliked, to break up cabinets, to dictate — 
the course of foreign policy, and even to direct the administration of 
war. To the royal office, and the royal person, they loudly and sin- 
cerely professed the strongest attachment. But to Clarendon they — 
owed no allegiance; and they fell on him as furiously as their prede- 
cessors had fallen on Strafford. The minister’s virtues and vices 
alike contributed to his ruin. He was the ostensible head of the ad- 
ministration, and was therefore held responsible even for those acts 
which he had strongly, but vainly, opposed in Council. He was re- 
garded by the Puritans, and by all who pitied them, as an implacable 
bigot, a second Laud, with much more than Laud’s understanding. — 
He had on all occasions maintained that the Act of Indemnity ought 
to be strictly observed; and this part of his conduct, though highly 
honourable to him, made him hateful to all those Royalists who 
wished to repair their ruined fortunes by suing the Roundheads for 
damages and mesne profits. The Presbyterians of Scotland attributed 
to him the downfall of their Church. The Papists of Ireland attribu- 
ted to him the loss of their lands. As father of the Duchess of York, 
he had an obvious motive for wishing that there might be a barren 
Queen; and he was therefore suspected of having purposely recom- 
mended one. ‘The sale of Dunkirk was justly imputed to him, For 
the war with Holland, he was, with less justice, held accountable. — 
His hot temper, his arrogant deportment, the indelicate eagerness 
with which he grasped at riches, the ostentation with which he 
squandered them, his picture gallery, filled with masterpieces of Van- 


’ 


S HISTORY OF ENGLAND.. 125 
dyke which had once been the property of ruined Cavaliers, his 
palace, which reared its long and stately front right opposite to the 
humbler residence of our Kings, drew on him much deserved, and 
some undeserved, censure. Whenthe Dutch fleet was in the Thames, 
it Was against the Chancellor that the rage of the populace was chiefly 
directed. His windows were broken; the trees of his garden were 

eut down; anda gibbet was set up before his door. But nowhere 
was he more detested than in the House of Commons. He was un- 
able to perceive that the time was fast approaching when that House, 
if it continued to exist at all, must be supreme in the state, when the 
management of that House would be the most important department 

of politics, and when, without the help of men possessing the ear of 
that House, it would be impossible to carry on the government. He 
obstinately persisted in considering the Parliament as a body in no 

‘respect differing from the Parliament which had been sitting when, 
forty years before, he first began to study law at the Temple. He 
did not wish to deprive the legislature of those powers which were 
inherent in it by the old constitution of the realm: but the new de- 

velopment of those powers, thougha development natural, inevitable, 
and to be prevented only by utterly destroying the powers themselves, 
disgusted and alarmed him. Nothing would have induced him to 

put the great seal to a writ for raising shipmoney, or to give his voice 
in Council for committing a member of Parliament to the Tower, on 
account of words spoken in debate: but, when the Commons began 
to inquire in what manner the money voted for the war had been 
wasted, and to examine into the maladministration of the navy, he 
flamed with indignation. Such inquiry, according to him, was out 
of their province. He admitted that the House was a most loyal as- 
sembly, that it had done good service to the crown, and that its in- 

-tentions were excellent. But, both in public and in the closet, he, on 

-€very occasion, expressed his concern that gentlemen so sincerely 
attached to monarchy should unadvisedly encroach on the prerogative 
of the monarch. Widely as they differed in spirit from the members 
of the Long Parliament, they yet, he said, imitated that Parliament 

in meddling with matters which lay beyond the sphere of the Estates 
of the realm, and which were subject to the authority of the crown 
alone. ‘The country, he maintained, would never be well governed 

till the knights of shires and the burgesses were content to be what 

their predecessors had been in the days of Elizabeth. All the plans 
which men more observant than himself of the signs of that time 
proposed, for the purpose of maintaining a good understanding be- 
tween the Court and the Commons, he disdainfully rejected as crude 

projects, inconsistent with the old polity of England. Towards the 

oung orators, who were rising to distinction and authority in the 

_Lower House, his deportment was ungracious: and he succeeded in 

-tInaking them, with scarcely an exception, his deadly enemies. | In- 

deed one of his most serious faults was an inordinate contempt for 

M. E. i.—d 


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126 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


youth: and this contempt was the more unjustifiable, because his 
own experience in English politics was by no means proportioned to — 
his age. For so great a part of his life had been passed abroad that 
he. knew less of that world in which he found himself on his return 
than many who might have been his sons. | 

For these reasons he was disliked by the Commons. For very dif- 
ferent reasons he was equally disliked by the Court. His morals as 
well as his politics were those of an earlier generation. Even when 
he was a young law student, living much with men of wit and pleas- — 
ure, his natural gravity and his religious principles had to a great 
extent preserved him from the contagion of fashionable debauchery; — 
and he was by no. means likely, in advanced years and in declining ~ 
health, to turn libertine. On the vices of the young and gay he looked ~ 
with an aversion almost as bitter and contemptuous as that which he 
felt for the theological errors of the sectaries. He missed no oppor- 
tunity of showing his scorn of the mimics, revellers, and courtesans 
who crowded the palace; and the admonitions which he addressed to 
the King himself were very sharp, and, what Charles disliked still 
more, very long. Scarcely any voice was raised in favour of a minis- 
ter loaded with the double odium of faults which roused the fury of 
the people, and of virtues which annoyed and importuned the sover- 
eign. Southampton was no more. Ormond performed the duties of 
friendship manfully and faithfully, but in vain. The Chancellor fell 
with a great ruin. The seal was taken from him: the Commons im-'— 
peached him: his head was not safe: he fled from the country: an 
act was passed which doomed him to perpetual exile; and those who ~ 
had assailed and undermined him began to struggle for the fragments — 
of his power. “= 

The sacrifice of Clarendon in some degree took off the edge of the 
public appetite for revenge. Yet was the anger excited by the pro- — 
fusion and negligence of the government, and by the miscarriages of 
the late war, by no means extinguished. ‘The counsellors of Charles, — 
with the fate of the Chancéllor before their eyes, were anxious for ~ 
their own safety. They accordingly advised their master to soothe 
the irritation which prevailed both in the Parliament and throughout 
the country, and for that end, to take a step which has no parallel in 
the history of the House of Stuart, and which was worthy of the ~ 
prudence and magnanimity of Oliver. ' 

We have now reached a point at which the history of the great — 
English revolution begins to be complicated with the history of for- — 
eign politics. The power of Spain had, during many years, been ~ 
declining. She still, it is true, held in Europe the Milanese and the ip 
two Sicilies, Belgium, and Franche Comté. In America her domin- ° 
ions still spread, on both sides of the equator, far beyond the limits ~ 
of the torrid zone. But this great body had been smitten with 
palsy, and was not only incapable of giving molestation to other i 


states, but could not, without assistance, repel aggression. France 


x 


- 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. , 127 


as now, beyond all doubt, the greatest power in Europe. Her re- 
rces have, since those days, absolutely increased, but have not 
creased so fast as the resources of England. It must also be re- 
“membered that, a hundred and eighty years ago, the empire of 
Russia, now a monarchy of the first class, was as entirely out of the 
system of European politics as Abyssinia or Siam, that the House of 
| Bt adenbare was then hardly more powerful than the House of Sax- 
ony, and that the republic of the United States had not then begun to 
exist. The weight of France, therefore, though still very considerable, 
has relatively diminished. Her territory was not in the days of Lewis 
the Fourteenth quite so extensive as at present: but it was large, 
-eompact, fertile, well placed both for attack and for defence, situated 
in a happy climate, and inhabited by a brave, active, and ingenious 
people. ‘he state implicitly obeyed the direction of a single mind. 
‘The great fiefs which, three hundred years before, had been, in all 
but name, independent principalities, had been. annexed to the 
“crown: Only a few old men could remember the last meeting of the 
‘States General. The resistance which the Huguenots, the nobles, 
and the parliaments had offered to the kingly power, had been put 
down by the two great Cardinals who had ruled the nation during 
forty years. The government was now a despotism, but, at least in 
its dealings with the upper classes, a mild and generous despotism, 
tempered by courteous manners and chivalrous sentiments. The - 
“means at the disposal of the sovercign were, for that age, truly for- 
‘Midable. His revenue, raised, it is true, by a severe and unequal 
‘taxation which pressed heavily on the cultivators of the soil, far ex- 
“ceeded that of any other potentate. is army, excellenly disci- 
‘plined, and commanded by the greatest generals then living, already 
“consisted of more than a hundred and twenty thousand men. Such 
an array of regular troops had not been seen in Europe since the 
downfall of the Roman empire. Of maritime powers France was 
ot the first. But, though she had rivals on the sea, she had not yet 
‘asuperior. Such was her strength during the last forty years of the 
mee weconth century, that no enemy could singly withstand her, and 
‘that two great coalitions, in which half Christendom was united 
“against her, failed of success. 
_ The personal qualities of the French King added to the respect in- 
Spired by the power and importance of his kingdom. No sovereign 
as ever represented the majesty of a great state with more dignity 
and grace. He was his own prime minister, and performed the 
duties of a prime minister with an ability and industry which could 
not be reasonably expected from, one who had in infancy succeeded 
to a crown, and who had been surrounded by flatterers before he 
could speak. He had. shown, in an eminent degree, two talents in- 
valuable to a prince, the talent of choosing his servants well, and the 
talent of appropriating to himself the chief part of the credit of their 
acts. In his dealings with foreign powers he had some generosity, 


128 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


but no justice. To unhappy allies who threw themselves at his feet, — 
and had no hope but in his compassion, he extended his protection — 
with a romantic disinterestedness, which seemed better suited toa — 
knight errant than to a statesman. But he broke through the most 
sacred ties of public faith without scruple or shame, whenever they 
interfered with his interest, or with what he called his glory. His 
perfidy and violence, however, excited less enmity than the insolence 
with which he constantly reminded his neighbours of his own great- 
ness and of their littleness. He did not at this time profess the 
austere devotion which, at a later period, gave to his court the aspect 
of a monastery. On the contrary, he was as licentious, though by 
no means as frivolous and indolent, as his brother of England. But 
he was a sincere Roman Catholic; and both his conscience and his 

vanity impelled him to use his power for the defence and propaga- 
tion of the true faith, after the example of his renowned predeces- 
sors, Clovis, Charlemagne, and Saint Lewis. 

Our ancestors naturally looked with serious alarm on the growing 
power of France. This feeling, in itself perfectly reasonable, was 
mingled with other feelings less praiseworthy. France was our old 
enemy. It was against France that the most glorious battles re- 
corded in our annals had been fought. The conquest of France had 
been twice effected by the Plantagenets. The Joss of France had 
been long remembered as a great national disaster. The title of 
King of France was still borne by our sovereigns. The lilies of 
France still appeared mingled with our own lions, on the shield of the 
House of Stuart. In the sixteenth century the dread inspired by 
Spain had suspended the animosity of which France had anciently 
been the object. But the dread inspired by Spain had given place 
to contemptuous compassion; and France was again regarded as our 
national foe. The sale of Dunkirk to France had been the most gener- 
ally unpopular act of the restored King. Attachment to France had © 
been prominent among the crimes imputed by the Commons to 
Clarendon. Even in trifles the public feeling showed itself. When 
a brawl took place in streets of Westminster between the retinues of — 
the French and Spanish embassies, the populace, though forcibly 
prevented from interfering, had given unequivocal proofs that the 
old antipathy to France was not extinct. 

France and Spain were now engaged in a more serious contest. 
One of the chief objects of the policy of Lewis throughout his 
life was to extend his dominions towards the Rhine. For this end 
he had engaged in war with Spain, and he was now in the full career — 
of conquest. The United Provinces saw with anxiety the progress — 
of his arms. That renowned federation had reached the height of 
power, prosperity, and glory. The Batavian territory, conquered i 
from the waves and defended against them by human art, was in ex- 
tent little superior to the principality of Wales. But all that narrow 
space was a busy and populous hive, in which new wealth was every 


Pat 


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— HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 129 


day created, and in which vast masses of old wealth were hoarded. 
- The aspect of Holland, the rich cultivation, the innumerable canals, 
the ever whirling mills, the endless fleets of barges, the quick succes- 
sion of great towns, the ports bristling with thousands of masts, the 
large and stately mansions, the trim villas, the richly furnished 
apartments, the picture galleries, the summer houses, the tulip 
beds, produced on English travellers in that age an effect sim- 
ilar to the effect which the first sight of England now produces 
on a Norwegian or a Canadian. The States General had been com- 
p:lled to humble themselves before Cromwell. But after the Res- 
toration they had taken their revenge, had waged war with success 
against Charles, and had concluded peace on honourable terms. 
Rich, however, as the Republic was, and highly considered in 
Europe, she was no match for the power of Lewis. She appre- 
hended, not without good cause, that his kingdom might soon be ex- 
tended to her frontiers; and she might well dread the immediate 
Vicinity of a monarch so great, so ambitious, and so unscrupulous. 
Yet it was not easy to devise any expedient which might avert the 
danger. The Dutch alone could not turn the scale against France. 
On the side of the Rhine no help was to be expeeted. Several Ger- 
man princes had been gained by Lewis; and the Emperor himself 
was embarrassed by the discontents of Hungary. England was sep- 
_ arated from the United Provinces by the recollection of cruel injuries 
recently inflicted and endured; and her policy had, since the restora- 
tion, been so devoid of wisdom and spirit, that it was scarcely possi- 
ble to expect from her any valuable assistance. 
__ But the fate of Clarendon and the growing ill humour of the Par- 
liament determined the advisers of Charles to adopt on a sudden a 
policy which amazed and delighted the nation. 
The English resident at Brussels, Sir William Temple, one of the 
- most expert diplomatists and most pleasing writers of that age, had 
- already represented to this court that it was both desirable and practi- 
~ cable to enter into engagements with the States General for the pur- 
pose of checking the progressof France. For a time his suggestions 
had been slighted; but it was now thought expedient to act on 
them. He was commissioned to negotiate with the States General. 
He proceeded to the Hague, and soon came to an understanding with 
John De Witt, then the chief minister of Holland. Sweden, small as 
her resources were, had, forty years before, been raised by the genius 
_ of Gustavus Adolphus to a high rank among European powers, and 
_ had not yet descended to her natural position. She was induced to 
_ join on this occasion with England and the States. Thus was formed 
_ that coalition known as the Triple Alliance. Lewis showed signs 
of vexation and resentment, but did not think it politic to draw on 
himself the hostility of such a confederacy in addition to that of 
Spain. He consented, therefore, to relinquish a large part of the 
territory which his armies had occupied. Peace was restored to Eu- 


a 


no 


fs. 


130 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


rope; and the English government, lately an object of general con- 
tempt, was, during a few months, regarded by foreign powers with 
respect scar rely less than that which the Protector had inspired. 

At home the Triple Alliance was popular in the highest degree. 
It gratified alike national animosity and national pride. It put a limit 
to the encroachments of a powerful and ambitious neighbour, It 
bound the leading Protestant states together in close union. Cava- 
liers and Roundheads rejoiced in common: but the joy of the Round- 
head was even greater than that of the Cavalier. For England had 
now allied herself strictly with a country republican in government 
and Presbyterian in religion, against a country ruled by an arbitrary 
prince and attached to the Roman Catholic Church. - The House of 

‘Commons loudly applauded the treaty; and some uncourtly grum- 
blers described it as the only good thing that had been done since the 
King came in. 

The King, however, cared little for the approbation of his Parlia- 
ment or of his people. The Triple Alliance he regarded merely as 
a temporary expedient for quicting discontents which had seemed 
likely to become serious. The independence, the safety, the dignity 
of the nation over which he presided were nothing to him. He had 
begun to find constitutional restraints galling. Already had been 
formed in the Parliament a str ong connection known by the name of 
the Country Party. That party included all the-public men who 
leaned towards Puritanism and Republicanism, and many who, though 
attached to the Church and to hereditary monarchy, had been driven 
into opposition by dread of Popery, by dread of France, and by dis- 
gust at the extravagance, dissoluteness, and faithlessness ‘of the court. 
‘The power of this band of politicians was constantly growing. Every 
year some of those members who had been returned to Parliament 
during the loyal excitement of 1661 had dropped off; and the vacant 
seats had generally been filled by persons less tractable. Charles did 
not think himself a King while an assembly of subjects could call 
for his accounts before paying his debts, and could insist on knowing 
which of his mistresses or boon companions had intercepted the 
money destined for the equipping and manning of the fleet. Though 
not very studious of fame, he was galled by the taunts which were 
sometimes uttered in the discussions of the Commons, and on one 
occasion attempted to restrain the freedom of speech by disgraceful 
means. Sir John Coventry, a country gentleman, had, in debate, 
sneered at the profligacy of the court. In any former reign he would 
probably have been called before the Privy Council and committed to” 
the Tower. A different course was now taken. A gang of bullies was” 
secretly sent to slit the nose of the offender. This ignoble revenge, 
rintiad of quelling the spirit of opposition, raised such a tempest that 
the King was compelled to submit to the cruel humiliation of passing 
an act which attainted the instruments of his revenge, and which: 
took from him the power of pardoning them. ri 


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“HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 131 


“a But, impatient as he was of constitutional restraints, how was he 
to emancipate himself from them? He could make himself despotic 
- only by the help of a great standing army; and such an army was not 
| 4 m existence. His revenues did indeed enable him to keep up some 
regular troops: but those troops, though numerous enough to excite 
a reat jealousy and apprehension in the House of Commons and in 
oe the country, were scarcely rumerous enough to protect Whitehall and _ 
“the Tower against a rising of the mob ‘of London. Such risings 
were, indeed, to be dreaded; for it-was calculated that in the capital 
and its suburbs dwelt not less than 20,000 of Oliver’s old soldiers. 
Since the King was bent on emancipating himself from the control 
of Parliament, and since, in such an enterprise, he could not hope 
for effectual aid at home, it followed that he must look foraid abroad, 
The power and wealth of the King of France might be equal to the 
| Biandas task of establishing absolute mot rarchy in England. Such 
an ally would undoubtedly ‘expect substantial proofs-of g “eratitude for 
such a service. Charles must descend to the rank of a great vassal, 
and must make peace and war according to the directions of the gov- 
_ ernment which protected him. His relation to Lewis would closely 
resemble that in which the Rajah of Nagpore and the King of Oude. 
now stand to the British Government. Those princes are “bound to 
: “aid the East India Company in all hostilities, defensive and offensive, 
and to have no diplomatic relations but such as the East India 
Company shall sanction. The Company in return guarantees the: 
against insurrection. As long as they faithfully discharge their obli- 
“gations to the paramount power, they are permitted to dispose of 
large revenues, to fill their palaces with beautiful women, to besot 
themselves i in the company of their favourite revellers, and to oppress 
“with impunity any subject who may incur their displeasure. e.* Such 
a Jife would be insupportable to'a man of high spirit and of powerful 
understanding. But to Charles, sensual, indolent, unequal to any 
_ Strong intellectual exertion. and destitute alike of all patriotism and 
r. of all sense of personal dignity, the prospect had nothing unpleasing. 
That the Duke of York should have concurred in the de sign of 
degrading that crown which it was probable that he would himself 
one day wear may seem more extraordinary. For his nature was 
haughty and imperious; and, indeed, he continued to the very last to 
show, by occasional starts and struggles, his impatience of the French 
yoke. But he was almost as much debased by superstition as his 
_ brother by indolence and vice. James was now a Roman Catholic. 
Beslizious bigotry had become the dominant sentiment of his narrow 
“and stubborn mind, and had so mingled itself with his love of rule, 
_ that the two passions could hardly be distinguished from each other. 


# Iam happy to say, that, since this passage was written, the territories both 
_ of the am by ot Nagpore and of the King of Oude have been added to the British 
dominions, 1857.) 


132 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


It seemed highly improbable that, without foreign aid, he would be 
able to obtain ascendency, or even toleration, for his own faith: and 
_ he was in atemper to see nothing humiliating in any step which 
might promote the interests of the true Church. 

A negotiation was opened which lasted during several months, 
The chief agent between the English and French courts was the 
beautiful, graceful, and intelligent Henrietta, Duchess of Orleans, 
sister of Charles, sister in law of Lewis, and a favourite with both. 
The King of England offered to declare himself a Roman Catholic, 
to dissolve the Triple Alliance, and to join with France against Hol- 
land, if France would engage to lend him such military and pecuniary 
aid as might make him independent of his parliament. Lewis at first 
affected to receive these propositions coolly, and at length agreed to- 
them with the air of a man who is conferring a great favour: but in 
truth, the course which he had resolved to take was one by which he 
might gain and could not lose. 

It seems certain that he never seriously thought of establishing des- 
potism and Popery in England by force of arms. He must have 
been aware that such an enterprise would be in the highest degree 
arduous and hazardous, that it would task to the utmost all the 
energies of France during many years, and that it would be alto- 
gether incompatible with more promising schemes of aggrandise- 
ment, which were dear to his heart. He would indeed willingly have 
acquired the merit and the glory of doing a great service on reason- 
able terms to the Church:of which he was a member. But he was 
little disposed to imitate his ancestors who, in the twelfth and thir- 
teenth centuries, had led the flower of French chivalry to die in Syria 
and Egypt: and he well knew that a crusade against Protestantism 
in Great Britain would not be less perilous than the expeditions. in 
which the armies of Lewis the Seventh and of Lewis the Ninth had 
perished. He had no motive for wishing the Stuarts to be absolute. 
He did not regard the English constitution with feelings at all resem- 
bling those which have in later times induced princes to make war on 
the free institutions of neighbouring nations. At presenta great party” 
zealous for popular government has ramifications in every civilised 
country. Any important advantage gained anywhere by that party 
is almost certain to be the signal for general commotion. It is not 
wonderful that governments threatened by a common danger should 
combine for the purpose of mutual insurance. But in the seven- 
teenth century no such danger existed. Between the public mind of 
England and the public mind of France, there was a great gulph. 
Our institutions and our factions were as little understood at Paris as 
at Constantinople. It may be doubted whether anyone of the forty 
members of the French Academy had an English volume in his” 
library, or knew Shakespeare, Jonson, or Spenser even by name. 
A few Huguenots, who had inherited the mutinous spirit of their an- 
cestors, might perhaps have a fellow feeling with their brethren in 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. : 135 


the faith, the English Roundheads: but the Huguenots had ceased to 

_ be formidable. The French, as a people, attached to the Church of 

_ Rome, and proud of the greatness of tiaeir King and of their own 
loyalty, looked on our struggles against Popery and arbitrary power, 
not only without admiration or sympathy, but with strong disappro- 
bation and disgust. It would therefore be a great error to ascribe 
the conduct of Lewis to apprehensions at all resembling those which, 
in our age, induced the Holy Alliance to interfere in the internal 
troubles of Naples and Spain. . 

Nevertheless, the propositions made by the court of Whitehall were 
most welcome to him. He already meditated gigantic designs, which 
were destined to keep Europe in constant fermentation during more 
than forty years. He wished to humble the United Provinces, and 
to annex Belgium, Franche Comté, and Lorraine to his dominions. 
Nor was this all. The King of Spain was a sickly child. It was 
likely that he would die without issue. His eldest sister was Queen 
of France. A day would almost certainly come, and might come 
very soon, when the House of Bourbon might lay claim to that vast 
empire on which the sun never set. The union of two great mon- 
archies under one head would doubtless be opposed by a continental 
coalition. But for any continental coalition France single-handed 
was a match. England would turn the scale. On the course which, 
in such a crisis, England might pursue, the destinies of the world 
would depend; and it was notorious that the English Parliament 
and nation were strongly attached to the policy which had dictated 
the Triple Alliance. Nothing, therefore, could be more gratifying 

to Lewis than to learn that the princes of the House of Stuart needed 
his help, and were willing to purchase that help by unbounded sub- 
serviency. He determined to profit by the opportunity, and laid 
down for himself a plan to which, without deviation, he adhered, till 
the Revolution of 1688 disconcerted all his politics. He professed 
himself desirous to promote the designs of the English court. He 
promised large aid. He from time to time doled out such aid as 
might serve to keep hope alive, and as he could without risk or in- 
“convenience spare. In this way, at an expense very much less than 
that which he incurred in building and decorating Versailles or Marli, 
_ he succeeded in making England, during nearly twenty years, almost 
as insignificant a member of the political system of Europe as the 
republic of San Marino. 
His object was not to destroy our constitution, but to keep the 
‘various elements of which it was composed in a perpetual state of 
conflict, and to set irreconcilable enmity between those who had the 
"power of the purse and those who had the power of the sword. With 
this view he bribed and stimulated both parties in turn, pensioned at 
once the ministers of the crown and the chiefs of the opposition, en- 
couraged the court to withstand the seditious encroachments of the 
_ Parliament, and conveyed to the Parliament intimations of the ar- 
_bitrary designs of the court. 
tn 


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‘ 


— 
(bts) 
Ie 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


One of the devices to which he rescrted for the purpose of ob- 
taining an ascendency in the English counsels deserves especial 
notice. Charles, though incapable of love in the highest sense of the 
word, was the slave of any woman whose person excited his desires, 
and whose airs and prattle amused his leisure. Indeed a husband 
would be justly derided who should bear from a wife of exalted rank 
and spotless virtue half the insolence which the King of England 
bore from the concubines who, while they owed everything to his 
bounty, caressed his courtiers almost before his face. He had pa- 
tiently endured the termayant passions of Barbara Palmer and the 
pert vivacity of Eleanor Gwynn. Lewis thought that the most use-- 
ful envoy who could be sent to London, would be a handsome, licen-_ 
tious, and crafty Frenchwoman. Such a woman was Louisa, a lady 
of the House of Querouaille, whom our rude ancestors called Madam 
Carwell. She was soon triumphant over all her rivals, was created 
Duchess of Portsmouth, was loaded with wealth, and obtained a do-— 
minion which ended only with the life of Charles. 

The most important conditions of the alliance between the crowns 
were digested into a secret treaty which was signed at Dover in May, 
1670, just ten years after the day on which Charles had landed at_ 
that very port amidst the acclamations and joyful tears of a too con-— 
fiding people. . 

By this treaty Charles bound himself to make public profession of 
the Roman Catholic religion, to join his arms to those of Lewis for 
the purpose of destroying the power of the United Provinces, and to 
employ the whole strength of England, by land and sea, in support 
of the rights of the House of Bourbon to the vast monarchy of 
Spain. Lewi is, on the other hand, engaged to pay a large sub-— 
sidy, and promised that, if any insurrection should break out in 
England, he would send an army at his own hae to support his" 
ally. 

This compact was made with gloomy auspices. Six weeks after it 
had been signed and sealed, the charming princess, whose influence 
over her brother and brother in law had been so pernicious to her 
country, was no more. Her death gave rise to horrible suspicions” 
which, for a moment, seemed likely to interrupt the newly formed 
friendship between the Houses of Stuart and Bourbon: but in a short 
time fresh assurances of undiminished good will were exchanged 
between the confederates. 

The Duke of York, too dull to apprehend danger, or too fanatical 
to care about it, was impatient to see the article touching the Roman» 
Catholic religion carried into immediate éxecution: but Lewis had the” 
wisdom to perceive that, if this course were taken, there would be such 
an explosion in England as would probably frustrate those parts of the 
plan which he had most at heart. It was therefore determined that 
Charles should still call himself a Protestant, and should still, at high 
festivals, receive the sacrament according to the ritual of the Church — 


4 


Ba HISTORY OF ENGLAND. rs 135 


a England. His more scrupulous brother ceased to appear in the 
royal chapel. 
About this time died the Duchess of York, daughter of the banished 
Earl of Clarendon. She had been, during some years, a concealed 
man Catholic. She left two daughters, Mary and Anne, after- 
Bards successively Queens of Great Britain. They were bred Protes- 
tants by the positive command of the King, who knew that it would 
_ be vain for him to profess himself a member of the Church of Eng- 
land, if children who seemed likely to inherit his throne were, by his 
permission, brought up as members of the Church of Rome. 
The principal servants of the crow.1 at this time were men whose 
names have justly acquired an unenviable notoriety. We must take 
_ heed, however, that we do not load their memory with infamy which 
of right belongs to their master. For the treaty of Dover the King 
‘himself is chiefly answerable. He held conferences on it with the 
_ French agents: he wrote many letters concerning it with his own 
hand: he was the person who first suggested the most disgraceful arti- 
cles which it contained; and he carefully concealed some of those 
articles from the majority of his Cabinct. 
_ Few things in our history are more curious than the origin and 
“growth of the power now possessed by the Cabinet. From an early 
ection the Kings of England had been assisted by a Privy Council to 
_ Which the law assigned | many important functions and duties. Dur- 
“ing several centuries this body deliberated on the gravest and most 
delicate affairs. But by degrees its character changed. : It became 
too large for despatch and secrecy. Tne rank of Privy Councillor 
me ‘was often bestowed as an honorary distinction on persons to whom 
if ‘nothing was confided, and whose opinion was never asked. The sov- 
_ ereign, on the most important occasions, resorted for advice to a small 
_ knot of leading ministers. The advantages and disadvantages of this 
_ course were early pointed out by Bacon, “with his usual judgment and 
- Sagacity: but it was not till after the Restoration that the interior 
' council began to attract general notice. During many years old 
r: fashioned politicians continued to regard the Cabinet as an unconsti- 
~ tutional and dangerous board. Nevertheless, it constantly became 
more and more important. Tt at length drew to itself the chief execu- 
_ tive power, and has now been regarded, during several generations, 
as an essential part of our polity. Yet, strange to say, it still con- 
4 tinues to be altogether unknown to the law: the names of the noble- 
_ Inen and gentlemen who compose it are never officially announced to 
_ the public: no record is kept of its meetings and resolutions; nor has 
its existence ever been recognised by any Act of Parliament. 
a During some years the word Cabal was popularly used as synony- 
- mous with Cabinet. But it happened by a whimsical coincidence 
- that, in 1671, the Cabinet consisted of five persons the initial letters 
of whose names made up the word Cabal; Clifford, Arlington, Buck- 
aa Ashley, and Lauderdale. These ministers were therefore 


136 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


emphatically called the Cabal; and they soon made that appellatia” 
so infamous that it has never since their time been used except as a 
term of reproach. 

Sir Thomas Clifford was a Commissioner of the Treasury, and had 
greatly distinguished himself in the House of Commons. Of the 
members of the Cabal he was the most respectable. For, with a fiery - 
and imperious temper, he had a strong though a lamentably perverted 
sense of duty and honour. 

Henry Bennet, Lord Arlington, then Secretary of State, had, since 
he came to manhood, resided principally on the Continent, and had 
learned that cosmopolitan indifference to constitutions and religions 
which is often observable in persons whose life has been passed in 
vagrant diplomacy. If there was any form of government which he 
liked it was that of France. If there was any Church for which he- 
felt a preference, it was that of Rome. He had some talent for con- 
versation, and some talent also for transacting the ordinary business 
of office. He had learned, during a life passed in travelling and 
negotiating, the art of accommodating his language and deportment 
to the society in which he found himself. His vivacity in the closet 
amused the King: his gravity in debates and conferences imposed on — 
the public; and he had succeeded in attaching to himself, partly by 
services and partly by hopes, a considerable number of personal re- 
tainers. 

Buckingham, Ashley, and Lauderdale were men in whom the im- 
morality which was epidemic among the politicians of that age ap- 
peared in its most malignant type, but variously modified by great 
diversities of temper and understanding. Buckingham was a sated 
man of pleasure, who had turned to ambition as to a pastime. As he 
had tried to amuse himself with architecture and music, with write 
farces and with seeking for the philosopher’s stone, so he now trie 
to amuse himself with a secret negotiation and a Dutch war. He had ~ 
already, rather from fickleness and love of novelty than from any 
deep design, been faithless to every party. At one time he had 

ranked among the Cavaliers. At another time warrants had been out — 
against him for maintainin g a treasonable correspondence with the re- 
mains of the Republican party in the city. He was now again a cour- 
tier, and was eager to win the favour of the King by services from 
which the most illustrious of those who had fought and suffered for 
the royal house would have recoiled with horror. 

Ashley, with a far stronger head, and with a far fiercer and more 
earnest ambition, had been. equally Versatile. But Ashley’s versatility 
was the effect, not of levity, but of deliberate selfishness. He had- 
served and betr ayed a succession of government. But he had timed 
all his treacheries so well that, through all revolutions, his fortunes 
had constantly been rising. The multitude, struck with admiration by 
a prosperity which, while everything else was constantly changing, re- 
mained unchangeable, attributed to him a prescience almost miracu 


mi 
oa 
1 oe 


# 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 137 


fous, and likened him to the Hebrew statesman of whom it is written 
that his counsel was as if a man had inquired of the oracle of God. 

Lauderdale, loud and coarse both in mirth and anger, was perhaps, 
under the outward show of boisterous frankness, the most dishonest 
man in the whole Cabal. He had made himsely conspicuous among 
the Scotch insurgents of 1638 by his zeal for the Covenant. He was 
accused of having been deeply concerned in the sale of Charles the 
First to the English Parliament, and was therefore, in the estimation 
of good Cavaliers, a traitor, if possible, of a worse description than 
those who had sate in the High Court of Justice. He often talked 
with a noisy jocularity of the days when he was a canter and a rebel. 
He was now the chief instrument employed by the court in the work 
of forcing episcopacy on his reluctant countrymen; nor did he in that 
cause shrink from the unsparing use of the sword, the halter, and the 
boot. Yet those who knew him knew that thirty years had made no 
change in his real sentiments, that he still hated the memory of 

Charles the First, and that he still preferred the Presbyterian form of 
church government to every other. 

Unscrupulous as Buckingham, Ashley, and Lauderdate were, it 
was not thought safe to intrust to them the King’s intention of de- 
claring himself a Roman Catholic. <A false treaty, in which the arti- 
cle concerning religion was omitted, was shown to them. ‘Phe names 
and seals of Clifford and Arlington are affixed to the genuine treaty. 
Both these statesmen had a partiality for the old Church, a partiality 

which the brave and vehement Clifford in no long time manfully 
avowed, but which the colder and meaner Arlington concealed, till 
the near approach of death scared him into sincerity. The three 
other cabinet ministers, however, were not men to be kept easily in 
the dark, and probably suspected more than was distinctly avowed 
tothem. They were certainly privy to all the political engagements 
contracted with France, and were not ashamed to receive large grati- 
fications from Lewis. ¢ 
_ The first object of Charles was to obtain from the Commons sup- 
plies which might be employed in executing the secret treaty. The 
Cabal, holding power at a time when our government was in a state 
of transition, united in itself two different kinds of vices belonging to 
two different ages and t two different systems. As those five evil 
counsellors were among the last Hnglish statesmen who seriously 
thought of destroying the Parliament, so they were the first English 
statesmen who attempted extensively to corrupt it. We find in their 
policy at once the latest trace of the Thorough of Strafford, and the 
earliest trace of that methodical bribery which was afterwards prac- 
tised by Walpole. They soon perceived, however, that, though the 
_ House of Commons was chiefly composed of Cavaliers, and though 
places and French gold had been lavished on the members, there was 
no chance that even the least odious parts of the scheme arranged at 
- Dover would be supported by a majority. It was necessary to have 


ay 
a 


138 - HISTORY-OF ENGLAND. 


recourse to fraud. The King professed great zeal for the principlesgy 
of the Triple Alliance, and pretended that, in order to hold the am- — 
bition of France in check, it would be necessary to augment the 
flect. The Commons fell into the snare, and voted a grant of eight 
hundred thousand pounds. The Parliament was instantly prorogued; 
and the court, thus emancipated from control, proceeded to the exe- 
cution of the ereat design. 

The financial difficulties however were serious. A war with Hol- 
Jand could be carried on only at enormous cost. The ordinary rev- 
enue was not more than sufficient to support the government in time 
of peace. The eight hundred thousand pounds out of which the 
Commons had just been tricked would not defray the naval and 
military charge of a single year of hostilities. After the terrible les- — 
son given by the Long Parliament, even the Cabal did not venture to 
recommend benevolences or shipmoney. In this perplexity Ashley 
and Clifford proposed a flagitious breach of public faith. ‘The gold- 
smiths of London were then not only dealers in the precious metals, — 
but also bankers, and were in the habit of advancing large sums of 
money to the gover nment. In return for these advances they received - 
assignments on the revenue, and were repaid with interest as the 
taxes came in. About thirteen hundred thousand pounds had been 
‘in this way intrusted to the honour of the state. On a sudden it was 
announced that it was not convenient to pay the principal, and that — 
the lenders must content themselves with interest. They were con- — 
sequently unable to meet their own engagements. The Exchange 
was in an uproar: several great mercantile houses broke; and dismay ~ 
and distress spread through all society. Meanwhile rapid strides | 
were made towards depotism. Proclamations, dispensing with Acts — 
of Parliament, or enjoining what only Parliament could lawfully en- — 
join, appeared i in rapid succession. - Of these edicts the most impor- — 
tant was the Declaration of Indulgence. By this instrument the penal — 
laws against Roman Catholics were set aside; and, that the real object 4 
of the measure might not be perceived, the laws against Protestant — : 
Nonconformists were also suspended. j 

A few days after the appearance of the Declaration of Indulgence, — 
war was proclaimed againt the United Provinces. By sea the Dutch ~ 
maintained the struggle with honour; but on land they were at first — 
borne down by irresistible force. A great French army passed the] , 
Rhine. Fortress after fortress opened its gates. Three of the seven” 
provinces of the federation were occupied by the invaders. ‘The fires 
of the hostile camp were seen from the top of the Stadthouse of — 
Amsterdam. The Republic, thus fiercely assailed from without, was ‘ 
torn at the same time by internal dissensions, The government was: 
in the hands of a close oligarchy of powerful burghers. ‘There were ~ 
numerous selfelected Town Councils, each of which exercised, witha 
in its own sphere, many of the rights of sovereignty. These councils — 
sent delegates to the Provincial States; and the Provincial States again — 


a 
. 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 139 


delegates to the States General. A hereditary first magistrate 
as no essential part of this polity. Nevertheless one family, sin- 
gularly fertile of great men, had gradually obtained a large and some- 
What indefinite authority, William, first of the name, Prince of 
Orange Nassau, and Stadtholder of Holland, had headed the memo- 
rable insurrection against Spain. His son Maurice had been Captain 
General and first minister of the States, had, by eminent abilities and 
public services, and by some treacherous and cruel actions, raised 
himself to almost kingly power, and had. bequeathed a great part of 
that power to his family. The influence of the Stadtholders was an 
Object of extreme jealousy to the municipal oligarchy. But the 
army, and that great body of citizens which was excluded from all 
share in the government, looked on the Burgomasters and Deputies 
with a dislike resembling the dislike with which the legions and the 
common people of Rome regarded the Senate, and were as zealous 
for the House of Orange as the legions and the common people of 
Rome for the House of Cesar. The Stadtholder commanded the 
forces of the commonwealth, disposed of all military commands, had 
a large share of the civil patronage, and was surrounded by pomp 
almost regal. 

_ Prince William the Second had been strongly opposed by the 
oligarchical party. His life had terminated in the year 1650, amidst 
‘great civil troubles. He died childless: the adherents of his house 
were left for a short time without a head; and the powers which he 
had exercised were divided among the Town Councils, the Provincial 
States, and the States General. 

But, a few days after William’s death, his widow, Mary, daughter 
‘of Charles the first, King of Great Britain, gave birth to a son, des- 
tined to raise the glory and authority of the House of Nassau to the 
highest point, to save the United Provinces from slavery, to curb the 
power of France, and to establish the English constitution on a last- 
ing foundation. , 

This Prince, named William Henry, was from his birth an object 
of serious apprehension to the party now supreme in Holland, and of 
loyal attachment to the old friends of his line. He enjoyed high 
consideration as the possessor of a splendid fortune, as the chief of 
one of the most illustrious houses in Europe, as a Magnate of the 
‘German empire, as a prince of the blood royal of England, and, above 
all, as the descendant of the founders of Batavian liberty. But the 
high office which had once been considered as hereditary in his 
family remained in abeyance; and the intention of the aristocratical 
ad was that there should never be another Stadtholder. The want 
Of atirst magistrate was, to a great extent, supplied by the Grand 
Pensionary of the Province of Holland, John De Witt, whose abilities, 

rmness, and integrity had raised him to unrivalled authority in the 
councils of the municipal oligarchy. 
The French invasion produced a complete change. The suffering 


140 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


and terrified people raged fiercely against the government. In their 
madness they attacked the bravest captains and the ablest statesmen 
of the distressed commonwealth. De Ruyter was insulted by the 
rabble. De Witt was tornin pieces before the gate of the palace of 
the States General at the Hague. The Prince of Orange, who had no 
share in the guilt of the murder, but who, on this occasion, as on 
another lamentable occasion twenty years later, extended to crimes 
perpetrated in his cause an indulgence which has left a stain on his 
glory, became chief of the government without a rival. Young as he 
was, his ardent and unconquerable spirit, though disguised by a cold 
and sullen manner, soon roused the courage of his dismayed country- 
men, . It was in vain that both his uncle and the French King at- 
tempted by splendid offers to seduce him from the cause of the Re- 
public. To the States General he spoke a high and inspiriting 
language. He even ventured tosuggest a scheme which has an as- 
pect of antique heroism, and which, if it had been accomplished, 
would have been the noblest subject for epic song that is to be found * 
in the whole compass of modern history. He told the deputies that, 
even if their natal soil and the marvels with which human industry 
had covered it were buried under the ocean, all was not lost. The 
Hollanders might survive Holland. Liberty and pure religion, driven 
by tyrants and bigots from Europe, might take refuge in the farthest 
isles of Asia. The shipping in the ports of the republic would suffice 
to carry two hundred thousand emigrants to the Indian Archipelago. 
There the Dutch commonwealth might commence a new and more 
glorious existence, and might rear, under the Southern Cross, amidst 
the sugar canes and nutmeg trees, the Exchange of a wealthier Am- 
sterdam, and the schools of a more learned Leyden. ‘The national 
spirit swelled and rose high. The terms offered by the allies were 
firmly rejected. The dykes were opened. The whole country was 
turned into one great lake, from which the cities, with their ramparts 
and steeples, rose like islands. The invaders were forced to save 
themselves from destruction by a precipitate retreat. Lewis, who, 
though he sometimes thought it necessary to appear at the head of 
his troops, greatly preferred a palace to a camp, had already returned 
to enjoy the adulation of poets and the smiles of ladies in the newly 
planted alleys of Versailles. 

And now the tide turned fast. The event of the maritime war had ~ 
been doubtful; by land the United Provinces had obtained a respite; 
and a respite, though short, was of infinite importance. Alarmed by 
the vast designs of Lewis, both the branches of the great House of 
Austria sprang to arms. Spain and Holland, divided by the memory — 
of ancient wrongs and humiliations, were reconciled by the nearness 
of the common danger. From every part of Germany troops poured ~ 
towards the Rhine. The English government had already expended ~ 
all the funds which had been obtained by pillaging the public cred- 
itor. No loan could be expected from the City. An attempt to raise 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 141 


ce es by the royal authority would have at once produced a rebellion; 
Lewis, who had now to maintain a contest against half Europe, 
as in po condition to furnish the means of coercing the people of 
Inglanc. It was necessary to convoke the Parliament. 
_ In the spring of 16738, therefore, the Houses reassembled after a 
recess of near two years. Clifford, now a peer and Lord Treasurer, 
7: ped Ashley, now Earl of Shaftesbur y and Lord Chancellor, were the 
persons on whom the King principally relied as Parliamentar y man- 
agers. The Country Party instantly began to attack the policy of ~ 
_ the Cabal. The attack was made, not in the way of storm, but by 
Wil:) ow and scientific approaches. The Commons at first held out hopes 
that they would give support to the King’s foreign policy, but insisted 
the it he should purchase that support by abandoning his whole system 
of domestic policy. Their chicf object was to obtain the revocation 
of the Declaration of Indulgence. Of all the many unpopular steps 
taken by the government the most unpopular was the publishing of 
this Declaration. The most opposite sentiments had been shocked by 
an act so liberal, donc in a manner so despotic. All the enemies of 
Te eligious freedom, and all the friends of civil freedom, found them- 
elves on the sameside; and these two classes made up nineteen twen- 
feeihs of the nation. The zealous churchman exclaimed against the 
favour which had been shown both to the Papist and to the Puritan. 
The Puritan, though he might rejoice in the suspension of the persecu- 
tion by which he had been harassed, fclt little gratitude for a toleration 


ia 
a 
t 


Which he was to share with Antichrist. And all Englishmen who 
valued liberty and law, saw with uneasiness the deep inroad which 
the prerogative had made into the province of the legislature. 
it mst in candour be admitted that the constitutional question 
was then not quite free from obscvrity. Our ancient Kings had un- 
doubtediy claimed and exercised the right of suspending the operation 
of penal laws. The tribunals had recognised that right. Parlia- 
nents had suffered it to pass unchallenged. That some such right 
W vas inherent in the crown, few even of the Country Party ventur ed, 
in the face of precedent and authority, to deny. Yet it was clear 
that, if this prerogative were without limit, the English government 
r ould scarcely be distinguished from a pure despotism. That there 
Was a limit was fully “admitted by the King and his ministers. 
Whether the Declaration of Indulgence lay within or without the 
i mit was the question; and neither party could succeed in tracing 
‘any line which would bear examination. Some opponents of the 
$ government complained that the Declaration suspended not less than 
d forty statutes. But why not forty as well as one? There was an 
“Orator who gave it as his opinion that the King might constitutionally 
pense with bad laws, but not with good laws. ‘The absurdity of 
h a distinction it is needless to expose. The doctrine which 
ms to have been generally received in the House of Commons was, 
M the dispensing power was confined to secular matters, and did 


142 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


not extend to laws enacted for the security of the established religion. 
Yet, as the King was supreme head of the Church, it should seem 


that, if he possessed the dispensing power at all, he might weil — 
possess that power where the Church was concerned, When the — 


courtiers on the other side attempted to point out the bounds of this 
prerogative, they were not more successful than the opposition had 
been. 


The truth is that the dispensing power was a great anomaly in | 


politics. It was utterly inconsistent in theory with the principles of 
mixed government: but it had grown up in times when people troubled 


themselves little about theories.* Ithad not been very grossly abused | 


in practice. It had therefore been tolerated, and had gradually ac- 
quired a kind of prescription. At length it was employed, after a 
long interval, in an enlightened age, and at an important conjuncture, 
to an extent never before known, and fora purpose generally abhorred. 
It was instantly subjected to severe scrutiny. Men did not, indeed, 


at first, venture to pronounce it altogether unconstitutional. But they 


began to perceive that it was at direct variance with the spirit of the 
constitution, and would, if left unchecked, turn the English govern- 
ment from a limited into an absolute monarchy. 

Under the influence of such apprehensjons, the Commons denied 
the King’s right to dispense, not indeed with all penal statutes, but 
with penal statutes in matters ecclesiastical, and gave him plainly to 
understand that, unless he renounced that right, they would grant no 
supply for the Dutch war. He, for a moment, showed some incli- 
nation to put everything to hazard; but he was strongly advised by 


Lewis to submit to necessity, and to wait for better times, when the — 


French armies, now employed in an arduousstruggle on the Continent, 
might be available for the purpose of suppressing discontent in Ene- 
land. In the Cabal itself the signs of disunion and treachery began to 


appear. Shaftesbury, with his “proverbial sagacity, saw that a violent” 


reaction was.at hand, and that all things were tending towards a crisis 


resembling that of 1640. He was determined that such a crisis should — 


not find him in the situation of Strafford. He therefore turned ~ 


suddenly round, and acknowledged, in the House of Lords, that the 


Declaration was illegal. The King, thus deserted by his ally and © 


by his Chancellor, yielded, cancelled the Declaration, and solemnly 
promised that it should never be drawn into precedent. 


Even this concession was insufficient. The Commons, not content — 
with having forced their sovereign to annul the Indulgence, next ex- 


torted his unwilling assent to a celebrated law, which continued in 


ferce down to the reign of George the Fourth. This law, known as ~ 


the Test Act, provided that all persons holding any office, civil or 


* The most sensible thing sail in the House of Commons, on this subject, came — 


from Sir William Coventr: yi- ‘’\sur ancestors never did draw a line to circum 
seribe prerogative and liberty.’ 


a 


4 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 143 


1 litary, should take the oath of supremacy, should subscribe a dec- 
aration against transubstantiation, and should publicly receive the | 
89 rament according to the rites of the Church of England. The 
preamble expressed hostility only to the Papists: but the enacting 
clauses were scarcely more unfavourable to the Papists than to the rigid 
P iitans. ‘The Puritans, however, terrified at the evident leaning of 
the court towards Popery, and encouraged by some churchmen to 
hope that, as soon asthe Roman Catholics should have been effectually 
- disarmed, relief would be extended to Protestant Nonconformists, 
m: de little opposition; nor could the King, who was in extreme want 
of money, venture to withhold his sanction. The act was passed ; 
(> and the Duke of York was consequently under the necessity of 
igning the great place of Lord High Admiral. 
_ Hitherto the Commons had not declared against the Dutch war, 
But, when the King had, in return for money 7 cautiously doled out, 
‘ relinquished his whole plan of domestic policy, they fell impetuously 
_ on his foreign policy. They requested him to dismiss Buckingham 
and Lauderdale from his councils forever, and appointed a committee 
to consider the propriety of impeaching Arlington. In a short time the 
Cabal was no more., Clifford, who, alone of the five, had any claim 
to be regarded as an honest man, refused to take the new test, laid 
down his white staff, and retired to his country seat. Arlington 
q juitted the pnst of Secretary of State for a quiet and dignified employ- 
ment in the Royal household. Shaftesbury and Buckingham made 
their peace with the opposition, and appeared at the head of the 
stormy democracy of the city. Lauderdale, however, still continued 
io be minister for Scotch affairs, with which the English Parliament 
- could not interfere. 
_ And now the Commons urged the King to make peace with Hol- 
and, and expressly declared ‘that no more supplies should be granted 
ah or the war, unless it should appear that the enemy obstinately re- 
e sed to consent to reasonable terms. Charles found it necessary to 
postpone to a more convenient season all thought of executing the 
t aty of Dover, and to cajole the nation by pretending to return to 
the policy of the Triple Alliance. Temple, who, during the ascend- 
e mney of the Cabal, had lived in seclusion among his books and flower 
be ds, was called forth from his hermitage. By his instrumentality a 
s separate peace was concluded with the United Provinces; and he 
a in became ambassador at the Hague, where his presence was re- 
ga arded as a sure pledge for the sincerity of his court. 
_ The chief direction of affairs was now intrusted to Sir Thomas 
Osborne, a Yorkshire baronet, who had, in the House of Commons, 
shown eminent talents for business and debate. Osborne became 
si ord Treasurer, and was soon created Earl of Danby. He was not a 
‘man whose character, if tried by any high standard of morality, 
would appear to merit approbation. He was greedy of wealth and 
honours, corrupt himself, and a corrupter of others. The Cabal had 


144 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. i 


bequeathed to him the art of bribing Parliaments, an art still 
rude, and giving little promise of the rare perfection to which it was 
brought in the following century. He improved greatly on the plan 
of the first inventors. They had merely purchased orators: but 
every man who had a vote, might sell himself to Danby. Yet the ~ 
new minister must not be confounded with the negotiators of Dover. 
He was not without the feelings of an Englishman and a Protestant; 
nor did he, in his solicitude for his own interests, ever wholly forget 
the interests of his country and of his religion. He was desirous, 
indeed, to exalt the prerogative. but the means by which he proposed 
to exalt it were widely different from those which had been contem- 
plated by Arlington and Clifford. The tnought of establishing ar- 
bitrary power, by calling in the aid of foreign arms, and by reducing 
the kingdom to the rank ct a dependent principality, never entered 
into his mind. His plan was to rally round the monarchy those 
classes which had been the firm allies of the monarchy during the 
troubles of the preceding generation, and which had been disgusted 
by the recent crimes and errors of the court. With the help of the 
old Cavalier interest, of the nobles, of the country gentlemen, of the 
clergy, and of the Universities, it might, he conceived, be possible to 
make Charles, not indeed an absolute sovereign, but a sovereign 
scarcely less powerful than Elizabeth had been. 

Prompted by these feelings, Danby formed the design of securing 
to the Cavalier party the exclusive possession of all political power 
both executive and legislative. In the year 1675, accordingly, a bill 
was offered to the Lords which provided that no person should hold 
any office, or should sit in either House of Parliament, without first 
declaring on oath that he considered resistance to the kingly power 
as in all cases criminal, and that he would never endeavour to alter 
the government either in Church or State. During several weeks 
the debates, divisions, and protests caused by this proposition kept 
the country in a state of excitement. The opposition in the House 
of Lords, headed by two members of the Cabal who were desirous to 
make their peace with the nation, Buckingham and Shaftesbury, was 
beyond all precedent vehement and pertinacious, and at length proved 
successful. The bill was not indeed rejected, but was retarded, mu 
tilated, and at length suffered to drop. 

So arbitrary and so exclusive was Danby’s scheme of domestic 
PECY: His opinions touching foreign policy did him more honour. 

hey were in truth directly opposed to those of the Cabal and dif- 
fered little from those of the Country Party. He bitterly lamented 
the degraded situation to which England was reduced, and declared, 
with more energy than politeness, that his dearest wish was to cudgel 
the French into a proper respect for her. So little did he disguise 
his feelings that, at a great banquet where the most illustrious dig- 
nitaries of the State and of the Church were assembled, he not very 
decorously filled his glass to the confusion of all who were against a 


. HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 145 


o 
war with France. He would indeed most gladly have seen his coun- 
‘try united with the powers which were then combined against Lewis, 
and was for that end bent on placing Temple, the author of the Triple 
Alliance, at the head of the department which directed foreign af- 
fairs. But the power of the prime minister was limited. In his 


ue most confidential letters he complained that the infatuation of his 
master prevented England from taking her proper place among Eu- 


ropean nations. Charles was insatiably greedy of French gold: he 
had by no means relinquished the hope that he might, at some future 
" day, be able to establish absolute monarchy by the heip of the 
French arms; and for both reasons he wished to maintain a good un- 
derstanding with the court of Versailles. 
_ Thus the sovereign leaned towards one system of foreign politics, 
? _ and the minister towards a system diametrically opposite. Neither 
_ the sovereign nor the minister, indeed, was of a temper to pursue 
any object with undeviating constancy. Each occasionally yielded 
to the importunity of the other; and their jarring inclinations and 
mutual concessions gave to the whole administration a strangely 
capricious character. Charles sometimes, from levity and indolence, 
suffered Danby to take steps which Lewis resented as mortal injuries. 
Danby, on the other hand, rather than relinquish his great place, 
‘sometimes stooped to compliances which caused him bitter pain and 
shame. The King was brought to consent to a marriage between the 
Lady Mary, eldest daughter and presumptive heiress of the Duke of 
a York, and William of Orange, the deadly enemy of France and the 
hereditary champion of the Reformation. Nay, the brave Earl of 
, Ossory, son of Ormond, was sent to assist the Dutch with some Brit- 
a 


ish troops, who, on the most bloody day of the whole war, signally 
Vinuicated the national reputation for stubborn courage. The 
Treasurer, on the other hand, was induced not only to connive at 
_ some scandalous pecuniary transactions which took place between 
_ his master and the court of Versailles, but to become, unwillingly 
indeed and ungraciously, an agent in those transactions. 

Meanwhile the Country Party was driven by two strong feelings 
in two opposite directions. ‘The popular leaders were afraid of the 
greatness of Lewis, who was not only making head against the whole 
strength of the continental alliance, but was even gaining ground. 
Yet they were afraid to entrust their own King with the means of 
curbing France, lest those means should be used to destroy the lib- 
erties of England. The conflict between these apprehensions, both 
of which were perfectly legitimate, made the policy of the Opposition 
seem as eccentric and fickle as that of the Court. The Commons 
called for a war with France, till the King, pressed by Danby to 
comply with their wish, seemed disposed to yield, and began to raise 
an army. But, as soon as they saw that the recruiting had com- 
_ menced, their dread of Lewis gave place to a nearer dread. They 
began to fear that the new levies might be employed on a service in 


146 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


which Charles took much more interest than in the defence of 
Flanders. They therefore refused supplies, and clamoured for dis- 
banding as loudly as they had just before clamoured for arming. 
Those historians who have severely reprehended this inconsistency 
do not appear to have made sufficient allowance for the embarrassing 
situation of subjects who have reason to believe that their prince is 
conspiring with a foreign and hostile power against their liberties. To 
refuse him military resources is to leave the state defenceless. Yet 
to give him military resources may be only to arm him against the 
state. In such circumstances vacillation cannot be considered as a 
proof of dishonesty or even of weakness. | 
These jealousies were studiously fomented by the French King. 
He had long kept England passive by promising to support the 
throne against the Parliament. He now, alarmed at finding that the 
patriotic counsels of Danby seemed likely to prevail in the closet, be- 
gan to inflame the Parliament against the throne. Between Lewis 
and the Country Party there was one thing, and one only in com- 
mon, profound distrust of Charles. Could the Country Party have 
been certain that their sovereign meant only to make war on France, 
they would have been eager to support him. Could Lewis have been 
certain that the new levies were intended only to make war on the 
constitution of England, he would have made no attempt to stop 
them. But the unsteadiness and faithlessness of Charles were such 
that the French Government and the English opposition, agreeing im 
nothing else, agreed in disbelieving his protestations, and were 
equally desirous to keep him poorand without anarmy. Communi- 
cations were opened between Barillon, the Ambassador of Lewis, anl 
those English politicians who had always professed, and who indeed 
sincerely felt, the greatest dread and dislike of the French ascend- 
ency. The most upright of the Country Party, William Lord Rus- 
sell, son of the Earl of Bedford, did not scruple to concert with 2 
foreign mission schemes for embarrassing his own sovereign. ‘This 
was the whole extent of Russell’s offence. His principles and his 
fortune alike raised him above e211 temptations of a sordid kind: but 
there is too much reason to believe that some of his associates were 
less scrupulous. It would be unjust to impute to them the extreme 
wickedness of taking bribes to injure their country. On the con- 
trary, they meant to serve her: but it is impossible to deny that they 
were mean and indelicate enough to let a foreign prince pay them 
for serving her. Among those who cannot be acquitted of this de- 
grading charge was one man who is popularly considered as the per- 
sonification of public spirit, and who, in spite of some great moral 
and intellectual faults, has a just claim to be called a hero, a philoso- 
pher, and a patriot. It is impossible to see without pain such a 
name in the list of the pensioners of France. Yet it is some conso- 
lation to reflect that, in our time, a public man would be thought 
lost to all sense of duty and of shame, who should not spurn from 


Ie, 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 147 
him a temptation which conquered the virtue and the pride of Al- 
gernon Sydney. 
- The éffect of these intrigues was that England, though she occasion- 
y took a menacing attitude, remained inactive till the continental 
war, having lasted near seven years, was terminated by the treaty of 
Nimeguen. The United Provinces, which in 1672 had seemed to be 
the verge of utter ruin, obtained honourable and advantageous 
mms. ‘This narrow escape was generally ascribed to the ability and 
courage of the young Stadtholder. His fame was great throughout 
Europe, and especially among the English, who regarded him as one 
of their own princes, and rejoiced to see him the husband of their 
future Queen. France retained many important towns in the Low 
Countries and the great province of Franche Comté. Almost the 
whole loss was borne by the decaying monarchy of Spain. 
_ A few months after the termination of hostilities on the Continent 
came a great crisis in English politics. Towards such a crisis things 
had been tending during eighteen years. The whole stock of popu- 
¥ ity, great as it was, with which the King had commenced his 
“administration, had long been expended. To loyal enthusiasm had 
‘succeeded profound disaffection. The public mind had now meas- 
ured back again the space over which it had passed between 1640 and 
1660, and was once more in the state in which it had been when the 
Long Parliament met. 
__ The prevailing discontent was compounded of many feelings. 
One of these was wounded national pride. That generation had seen 
England, during a few years, allied on equal terms with France, 
victorious over Holland and Spain, the mistress of the sea, the terror 
of Rome, the head of the Protestant interest. Her resources had not 
“diminished; and it might have been expected that she would have 
Deen at least as highly considered in Europe under a legitimate King, 
‘strong in the affection and willing obedience of his subjects, as she 
had been under an usurper whose utmost vigilance and energy were 
required tokeepdownamutinous people. Yet she had, in consequence 
of the imbecility and meanness of her rulers, sunk so low that any Ger- 
Man or Italian principality which brought five thousand men, into the 
field was a more important member of the commonwealth of nations. ~ 
__ With the sense of national humiliation was mingled anxiety for 
Civil liberty. Rumours, indistinct indeed, but perhaps the more 
‘alarming by reason of their indistinctness, imputed to the court a 
deliberate design against all the constitutional rights of Englishmen. 
it had even been whispered that this design was to be carried into 
eitect by the intervention of foreign arms. The thought of such 
tervention made the blood, even of the Cavaliers, boil in their 
eins. Some who had always professed the doctrine of non-resist- 
ce in its full extent were now heard to mutter that there was one 
nitation to that doctrine. If a foreign force were brought over ta 
‘ce the nation, they would not answer for their own patience. 


Pred 


148 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


But neither national pride nor anxiety for public liberty had so 
great an influence on the popular mind as hatred of the Roman Cath- 
plic religion. That hatred had become one of the ruling passions of 
the community, and was as strong in the ignorant and profane as in 
those who were Protestant from conviction. The cruelties of Mary’s 
reign, cruelties which even in the most accurate and sober narrative 
excite just detestation, and which were neither accurately nor soberly 
related in the popular martyrologies, the conspiracies against Eliza- 
beth, and above all the Gunpowder Plot, had Jeft in the minds of the 
vulgar a deep and bitter feeling which was kept up by annual com- 
memorations, prayers, bonfires, and processions. I1t should be added 
that those classes which were peculiarly distinguished by attachment 
to the throne, the clergy and the landed gentry, had peculiar reasons 
for regarding the Church of Rome with aversion. The clergy trem- 
bled for their benefices; the landed gentry for their abbeys and great 
tithes. While the memory of the reign of the Saints was still recent, 
hatred of Popery had in some degree given place to hatred of Puri- 
tanism; but, during the eighteen years which had elapsed since the 
Restoration, the hatred of Puritanism had abated, and the hatred of 
Popery had increased. The stipulations of the treaty of Dover were 
accurately known to very few; but some hints had got abroad. The 
general impression was that a great blow was about to be aimed at 
the Protestant religion. The King was suspected by many of a lean- 
ing towards Rome. His brother and heir presumptive was known to 
be a bigoted Roman Catholic. The first Duchess of York had died a 
Roman Catholic. James had then, in defiance of the remonstrances — 
of the House of Commons, taken to wife the Princess Mary of Modena, 
another Roman Catholic. If there should be sons by this marriage, 
there was reason to fear that they might be bred Roman Catholics, 
and that a long succession of princes, hostile to the established faith, 
might sit on the English throne. The constitution had recently been 
violated for the purpose of protecting the Roman Catholics from the 
penal laws. The ally by whom the policy of England had, during” 
many years, been chiefly governed, was not only a Roman Catholic, 
but a persecutor of the reformed Churches. nder such circum- 
stances it is not strange that the common people should have been 
inclined to apprehend a return of the times of her whom they called 
Bloody Mary. ; 

Thus the nation was in such a temper thai the smallest spark might 
raise aflame. At this conjuncture fire was set in two places at once — 
to the vast mass of combustible matter; and in a moment the whole 
was in a blaze. 

The French court, which knew Danby to be its mortal enemy, art- — 
fully contrived to ruin him by making him pass for its friend. Lewis, ~ 
by the instrumentality of Ralph Montague, a faithless and shameless — 
man who had resided in France as minister from England, laid before 
the House of Commons proofs that the Treasurer had been concerned — 
; 
a 


i 


Ww 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 149 


i 

_ in an application made by the Court of Whitehall to the Court of 

Versailles forasum of money. This discovery produced its natural 

effect. The Treasurer was, in truth, exposed to the vengeance of 

Parliament, not on account of his delinquencies, but on account of 

his merits; not because he had been an accomplice in a criminal 
transaction, but because he had been a most unwilling and unservice- 
able accomplice. But of the circumstances, which have, in the judg- 
ment of posterity, greatly extenuated his fault, his contemporaries 
were ignorant. In their view he was the broker who had sold Eng- 
land to France. It seemed clear that his greatness was at an end, 
and doubtful whether his head could be saved. 

Yet was the ferment excited by this discovery slight, when com- 
pared with the commotion which arose when it was noised abroad 

- that a great Popish plot had been detected. One Titus Oates, a 
clergyman of the Church of England, had, by his disorderly life and 
heterodox doctrine, drawn on himself the censure of his spiritual 

_ superiors, had been compelled to quit his benefice, and had ever since 
led an infamous and vagrant life. He had once professed himself a 
Roman Catholic, and had passed some time on the Continent in Eng- 
lish colleges of the order of Jesus. In those seminaries he had heard 

much wild talk about the best means of bringing England back to 
the true Church. From hints thus furnished he constructed a hid- 
eous romance, resembling rather the dream of a sick man than any 
transaction which ever took place in the real world. The Pope, he 
said, had entrusted the government of England to the Jesuits. The 
Jesuits had, by commissions under the seal of their society, appointed 
Roman Catholic clergymen, noblemen, and gentlemen, to all the 
highest offices in Church and State. The Papists had burned down 
London once. They had tried to burn it down again. They were 
at that moment planning a scheme for setting fire to all the shipping 

‘inthe Thames. They were to rise at a signal and massacre all their 
Protestant neighbours.- A French army was at the same time to land 
in Ireland. All the leading statesmen and divines of England were 
to be murdered. Three or four schemes had been formed for assas- 
Sinating the King. He was to be stabbed. He was to be poisoned 
‘in his medicine. He was to be shot with silver bullets. The public 
mind was so sore and excitable that these lies readily found credit 
with the vulgar; and two events which speedily took place led even 
some reflecting men to suspect that the tale, though evidently dis- 

 torted and exaggerated, might have some foundation. 

Kdward Coleman, a very busy, and not very honest, Roman Cath- 
Olic intriguer, had been among the persons accused. Search was 
made for his papers. It was found that he had just destroyed the 
greater part of them. But afew which had escaped contained some 
passages such as, to minds strongly prepossessed, might seem to con- 
firm the evidence of Oates. Those passages indeed, when candidly 
construed, appear to express little more than the hopes which the 


\ 


150 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


mY 
posture of affairs, the predilections, of Charles, the still stronger predi 
lections of James, and the relations existing between the French and 
Euglish courts, might naturally excite in the mind of a Roman 
Catholic strongly attached to the interests of his Church. But the 
country was not then inclined to construe the letters of Papists can- 
didly; and it was urged, with some show of reason, that, if papers 
which had been passed over as unimportant were filled with matter 
so suspicious, some great mystery of iniquity must have been con- 
tained in those documents which had been carefully committed to the 
flames. 

A few days later it was known that Sir Edmondsbury Godfrey, an 
eminent justice of the peace-who had taken the depositions of Oates 
against Coleman, had disappeared. Search was made; and Godfrey's 
corpse was found in a field near London. It was clear that he had 
died by violence. It was equally clear that he had not been set 
upon by robbers. His fate is to this day a secret. Scme think that 
he perished by his own hand; some, that he was slain by a private 
enemy. ‘The most improbable supposition is that he was murdered 
by the party hostile to the court, in order to give colour to the story 
of theplot. Themostprobable supposition seems, on the whole, to be 
that some hotheaded Roman Catholic, driven to frenzy by the liesof 
Oates and by the insults of the multitude, and not nicely distinguish- 
ing bétween the perjured accuser and the innocent magistrate, had 
taken a revenge of which the history of persecuted sects furnishes 
but too many examples. If this were co, the assassin must have 
afterwards bitterly execrated his own wickedness and folly. The 
capital and the whole nation went mad with hatred and fear. The 
penal laws, which had begun to lose scmething of their edge, were 
sharpened anew. Everywhere justices were Lusied in searching 
houses and seizing papers. All the gaols were filled with Papists. 
London had the aspect of a city in a state of siege. The trainbands 
were under arms all night. Fieparations were made for barricading 
the great thoroughfares. Fatrols marched up and down the streets. 
Cannon were planted round Whitehall. No citizen thought himself 
safe unless he carried under his coat a small flail loaded with lead to 
brain the Popish assassins. ‘Ihe corpse of the muideircd magistrate 
was exhibited during several Cays tothe gaze of grcat multitudes, and 
was then committed to the grave with strange and terrible cercmonies, 
- which indicated rather fear and the thirst of vengeance than sorrow 
or religious hope. The Hcusesinsistcd that a guaid should be placed 
in the vaults over which they sate, in o1der to secure them against a 
second Gunpowder Plot. All their picceedings were of a piece with 
~ this demand. Ever since thereign of Elizabeth the oath of supremacy 

had been exacted frcm members of the House of Ccmmons. fome 
Reman Catholics, however, had ccntrived so to interpret this oath 
that they could take it without scruple. A more stringent test was 
now added: every member of Parliament was required to make the 


= 


4 
i’ 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 151 


Jeclaration against Transubstantiation; and thus the Roman 
tholic Lords weve for the first time excluded from their seats. 
rong resolutions were adopted against the Queen. The Commons 
threw one of the Secretaries of State into prison for having counter- 
igned commissions directed to gentlemen who were not good Protes- 
ants. ‘They impeached the Lord Treasurer of high treason. Nay, 
they so far forgot the doctrine which, while the memory of the civil 
war was still recent, they had loudly professed, that they even 
ttempted to wrest the command of the’ militia out. of the King’s 
Hands. To such atemper had eighteen years of miszovernment 
ght the most loyal Parliament that had ever met in England. 

. "Yet it may seem strange that, even in that extremity, ‘the King 
should have ventured to appeal to the people; for the people were 
more excited than their representatives. The Lower House, discon- 
tented as it was, contained a lar ger number of Cavaliers than were 
likely to find seats again. But “it was thought that a dissolution 
would put a stop to the prosecution of the Lord Treasurer, a prose- 
‘ution which might probably bring to light all the guilty mysteries 

of the French alliance, and might ‘thus cause extreme personal an- 
oyance and embarrassment to Charles. Accordingly, in January, 
679, the Parliament, which had been-in existence ever since the be- 
inning of tae year 1661, was dissolved; and writs were issued for a 
neral election. 

During some weeks the contention over the whole country was 
erce and obstinate beyond example. Unprecedented sums were 
expended. New tactics were employed. It was remarked by the 
pamphileteers of that time as something extraordinary that horses were 
ired at a great charge for the conveyance of electors. The practice 
of splitting freeholds for the purpose of multiplying votes dates from 
this memorable struggle. Dissenting preachers, who had long hidden 
themselves in quiet hooks from persecution, now emerged from their 
retreats, and rode from village to village, for the purpose of rekind- 
g¢ the zeal of the scattered people of God. The tide ran strong 
| oe . the government. Most of the new members came up to 
: estminster in a mood little differing from that of their predecessors 
who had sent Strafford and Laud to the Tower. 

- Meanwhile the courts of justice, which ought to be, in the midst 
* political commotions, sure places of refuge for the innocent of 
every party, were diseraced by wilder passions and fouler corrup- 
tions than w:re to be found even on the hustings. The tale of Oates, 
though it had sufficed to convulse the who'e realm, would not, unless 
confirmed by other evidence, suffice to destroy the humblest of those 
hom he had accused. For, by the old law of England. two wit- 
messes are necessary to establish a charge of treason. But the suc- 
cess of the first impostor produced its natural consequences. In a 
few weeks he had been raised from penury and obscurity to opu- 
lence, to power which made him the dread of princes and nobles, 


v od 


is 


152 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


ard to notoriety such as bas for low and bad minds all the attrae 
tions of glory. He was not long without ccadjutors and rivals. A 
wretch named Carstairs, who had earned a livelihcod in Scotiand Ly 
going disguised to conventicles and then informing against the 
preachers, led the way. Bedloe, a noted swindler, followed; and 
soon from all the brothels, gambling houses, and spunging houses of 
London, false witnesses poured forth to swear away the lives of 
Roman Catholics. One came with a story about an army of thirty 
thousand men who were to muster in the disguise of pilgrims at 
Corunna, and to sail thence to Wales. Another had been promised 
canonisation and five hundred pcunds tomurder the King. A third 
had stepped into an cating house in Covent Garden, and had there 
leard a great Roman Catholic banker vow, in the hearing of all the 
guests and drawers, to kill the heretical tyrant. Oates, that he might 
not be eclipsed by his imitators, soon added a large supplement to his 
original narrative. He had the portentous impudence to affirm, 
among other things, that he had once stood behind a door which was 
ajar, and had there overheard the Queen declare that she had 
resolved to give her consent to the assassination of her husband. 
The vulgar believed, and the highest magistrates pretended to believe, 
even such ficticns as these. The chief judges of the realm were cor- 
rupt, cruel, and timid. The leaders of the Country Party encour- 
aged the prevailing delusion. The most respectable among them, 
indeed, were themselves so far deluded as to believe the greater part 
of the evidence of the plot to be true. Such men as Shaftesbury and 
Buckingham doubtless perceived that the whole was a romance. 
But it was a romance which served their turn; and to their seared 
consciences the death of an innocent man gave DO more uneasiness 
than the death of a partridge. The juries partook of the feelings 
then common throughout the nation, and were encouraged by the 
bench to indulge those feelings without restraint. The multitude 
applauded Oates and his confederates, hooted and pelted the wit- 
nesses who appeared on behalf of the accused, and shouted with joy 
when the verdict of Guilty was pronounced. It was in vain that the 
sufferers appealed to the respectability of their past lives: for the 
public mind was possessed with a belief that the more conscientious 
a Papist was, the more likely he must be to plot against a Protestant 
government. It was in vain that, just before the cart passed from 
under their feet, they resolutely affirmed their innocence: for the 
general opinion was that a good Papist considered all lies which 
were serviceable to his Church as not only excusable but meritorious. 

While innocent blood was shedding under the forms of justice; 
the new Parliament met; and such was the violence of the predomi- 
nant party that even men whose youth had been passed amidst revolu- 
tions, men who remembered the attainder of Strafford, the attempt 
on the five members, the abolition of the House of Lords, the execu- 
tion of the King, stood aghast at the aspect of public affairs. The im- 


i 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. . 153 


peachment of Danby was resumed. He pleaded the royal pardon. 
But the Commons treated the plea with contempt, and insisted that 
the trial should proceed. Danby, however, was not their chief ob- 
ject. ‘They were convinced that the only effectual way of securing 
the liberties ana religion of the nation was to exclude the Duke of 
York from the throne. 
_ The King was in great perplexity. He had insisted that hig 
brother, the sight of whom inflamed the populace to madness, should 
retire for a time to Brussels: but this’‘concession did not seem to have 
produced any favourable effect. The Roundhead party was now 
decidedly preponderant, ‘Towards that party leaned millions who 
had, at the time of the Restoration, leaned towards the side of preroe 
ative. Of the old Cavaliers many participated in the prevailing feat 
of Popery, and many, bitterly resenting the ingratitude of the prince 
for whom they had sacrificed so much, looked on his distress as 
carelessly as he had looked on theirs. Even the Anglican clergy, 
mortified and alarmed by the apostasy of the Duke of York, so far 
countenanced the opposition as to join cordially in the outcry against 
the Roman Catholics. 
_ The King in this extremity had recourse to Sir William Temple. 
Of all the official men of that age Temple had preserved the fairest 
character. The Triple Alliance had been his work. He had refused 
to take any part in the politics of the Cabal, and had, while that 
administration directed affairs, lived in strict privacy. He had 
quitted his retreat at the call of Danby, had made peace between 
England and Holland, and had borne a chief part in bringing about 
the marriage of the Lady Mary to her cousin the Prince of Orange. 
Thus he had the credit of every one of the few good things which 
had been done by the government since the Restoration. Of the 
numerous crimes and blunders of the last eighteen years none could 
be imputed to him. His private life, though not austere, was deco- 
rous: his manners were popular; and he was not to be corrupted 
either by titles or by money. Something, however, was wanting to 
the character of this respectable statesman. The temperature of 
his patriotism was lukewarm. He prized his ease and his personal 
dignity too much, and shrank from responsibility with a pusillani- 
mous fear. Nor indeed had his habits fitted him to bear a part in 
the conflicts of our domestic factions. He had reached his fiftieth 
year without having sate in the English Parliament; and his official 
experience had been almost entirely acquired at foreign courts. He 
Was justly esteemed one of the first diplomatists in Europe: but the 
talents and accomplishments of a diplomatist are widely different 
from those which qualify a politician to lead the House of Commons 
1n agitated times. 

The scheme which he proposed showed considerable ingenuity. 
Though not a profound philosopher, he had thought more than most 
busy men of the world on the general principles of government; and 


’ 


154 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


his mind had been palersed by historical studies and foreign travel. 
He seems to have discerned more Clearly than most of his contem 
poraries one cause of the difficulties by which the government was 
beset. The character of the English polity was gradually changing. 
The Parliament was slowly, but constantly, gaining ground on the 
prerogative. 'The line between the legislative and executive powers 
was in theory as strongly marked as ever, but in practice was daily 
becoming fainter and fainter. The theory of the constitution was 
that the King might name his own ministers. But the House of 
Commons had driven Clarendon, the Cabal, and Danby successively 
from the direction of affairs. The theory of the constitution was 
that the King alone had the power of making peace and war. But. 
the House of Commons had forced him to make peace with Holland, 
and had all but forced him to make war with France. The theory 
of the constitution was that the King was the sole judge of the-cases. 
in which it might be proper to pardon offenders. Yet he was so 
much in dread of the House of Commons that, at that moment, he 
could not venture to rescue from the gallows men whom he well 
knew to be the innocent victims of perjury. 

Temple, it should seem, was desirous to secure to the legislature 
its undoubted constitutional powers, and yet to prevent it, if possi-— 
ble. from encroaching further on the province of the executive admin- 
istration. With this view he determined to mterpose between the 
sovereign and the Parliament a body which might break the shock of 
their collision. ‘There was a body, ancient, highly honourable, and 
recognised by the law, which, he thought, might Le so remodelled’ 
as to serve this purpose. He determined to give to the Privy Coun- 
cil a new character and office in the government. The number of 
Councillors he fixed at thirty. Fifteen of them were to be the chief 
ministers of state, of law, and of religion. The other fifteen were to 
be unplaced noblemen and gentlemen of ample fortune and high 
character. There was to be no interior cabinet. AJ] the thirty were 
to be entrusted with every political secret, and summoned to every 
meeting; and the King was to declare that he would, on every occa- 
sion, be guided by their advice. ; 

Temple seems to have thought that, by this contrivance, he could at 
once secure the nation against the tyranny of the Crown, and the 
Crown against the encroachments of the Parliament. It was, on one 
hand, highly improbable that schemes such as had teen formed by 
the Cabal would be even propounded for discussion in an assembly 
consisting of thirty eminent men, fifteen of whom were bound by no 
tie of interest to the court. On the other hand, it might be hoped 
that the Commons, content with the guarantee against misgovern- 
ment which such a Privy Council furnished, would confine them- 
selves more than they had of late done to their strictly legislative 
functions, and would no longer think it necessary to pry into every | 
part of the executive administration. 


. 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. : 155 


‘This plan, though in some respects not unworthy of the abilities of 
uthor, was in principle vicious, The new board was half a cabi- 
and half a Parliament, and, like almost every other contrivance, 
ether mechanical or political, which is meant to serve two purposes 
fogether different, failed of accomplishing either. It was too large 
d too divided to be a good administrative body. It was too closely 
onnected with the Crown to be a good checking body. It contained 
enough of popular ingredients to make it a “bad council of state, 
Bc for the keeping of secrets, for the conducting of delicate nego- 
ations, and for the administration of war. Yet were these popular 
igredients by no means sufficient to secure the nation against mis- 
vernment. The plan, therefore, even if it had been fairly tried, 
: uld scarcely have succeeded; and it was not fairly tried. The 
ing was fickle and perfidious: *the Parliament was excited and un- 
asonable; and the materials out of which the new Council was 
e, though perhaps the best which that age afforded, were still 


The commencement of the new system was, however, hailed with 
neral delight; for the people were in a temper to think any change 
improvement. They were also pleased by some of the new nom- 
nations Shaftesbury, now their favourite, was appointed Lord 
sident. Russell and some other distinguished members of the 
untry Party were sworn of the Council. Buta few days later all 
again in confusion. The inconveniences of having so numerous 
binet were such that Temple himself consented to infringe one 
the fundamental rules which he had laid down, and to become one 
a small knot which really directed everything: With him were 
ned three other ministers, Arthur Capel, Earl of Essex, George 
vile, Viscount Halifax, and Robert Spencer, Ear] of Sunderland. 
Of the Earl of Essex, then First Commissioner of the Treasury, it 
‘Sufficient to say that he was a man of solid, though not brilliant 
rts, and of grave and melancholy character, that he had been con- 
nected with the Country Party, and that he was at this time honestly 
sirous to effect, on terms beneficial to the state, a reconciliation 
etween that party and the throne. 
Among the statesmen of those times Halifax was, in genius, the 
St. His intellect was fertile, subtle, and capacious. His polished, 
minous, and animated eloquence, set off by the silver tones of his 
ice, was the delight of the House of Lords. His conversation 
erflowed with thought, fancy, and wit. His political tracts well 
rve to be studied for their literary merit, and fully entitle him to 
uace among English classics. ‘T'o the weight derived from talents 
‘great and various he united all the influence which belongs to rank 
ample possessions, Yet he was less successful in politics than 
many who enjoyed smaller advantages. Indeed those intellectual 
culiariries which make his writings valuable frequently impeded 
m in the contests of active life. For he always saw passing events, 
> 


ee 


156 “HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


not in the point of view in which they commonly appear to one who 
bears a part in them, but in the point of view in which, after the 
lapse of many years, they appear to the philosophic: historian. With 
such a turn of mind, he could not long continue tv act cordiallv with any 
body of men. All the prejudices, all the exaggerations, of both the 
great parties in the state moved his scorn. He despised the mean 
arts and unreasonable clamours of demagogues. He despised still 
more the doctrines of divine right and passive obedience. He sneer- 
ed impartially at the bigotry of the Churchman and at the bigotry of 
the Puritan. He was equally unable to comprehend how any man 
should object to Saints’ days and surplices, and how any man should 
persecute any other man for objecting to them. In temper he 
was what, in our time, is called a Conservative, in theory he was 
a Republican. Even when his dread of anarchy and his disdain — 
for vulgar delusions led him to side for a time with the defenders of 
ar pitrary power, his intellect was always with Locke and Milton. In- 
deed, his jests upon hereditary monarchy were somctimes such as 
would have better become a member of the Calf’s Head Club then a 
Privy Councillor of the Stuarts. In religion he was so far from 
being a zealot that he was called by the uncharitable an atheist: but 
this imputation he vehemently repelled; and in truth, though he 
sometimes gave scandal by the way in which he exerted his rare 
powers both of reasoning and of ridicule on serious subjects, he 
seems to have been by no means unsusceptible of religious impres- _ 
sions. 

He was the chief of those politicians whom the two great parties 
contemptuously called Trimmers. Instead of quarrelling with this 
nickname, he assumed it as a title of honour, and vindicated, with 
great vivacity, the dignity of the appellation. Everything good, he 
said, trims between extremes. The temperate zone trims between 
the climate in which men are roasted and the climate in which they — 
are frozen. The English Church trims between the Anabaptist mad- 
ness and the Papist. lethargy. The English constitution trims be- 
tween Turkish despotism and Polish anarchy. Virtue is nothing — 
but a just temper between propensities any one of which, if indulged 
to excess, becomes vice. Nay, the perfection of the Supreme Being 
himself consists in the exact equilibrium of attributes, none of which 
could preponderate without disturbing the whole moral and physical — 
order of the world.* Thus Halifax was a Trimmer on principle. 
He was also a Trimmer by the constitution both of his head and of 
his heart. His understanding was keen, sceptical, inexhaustibly 
fertile in distinctions and objections; his taste refined; his sense of 
the ludicrous exquisite; his temper placid and forgiving, but fastid- 
ious, and by no means prone either to malevolence or to enthusiastic — 


* Halifax was undoubtedly the real author of the Character of a Trimmer, 
which, for a time, went under the name of his kinsman, Sir William Coventry. 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 157 


admiration, Such a man could not long be constant to any band of 
political allies. He must not, however, be confounded with the 
vulgar crowd of renegades. For though, like them, he passed from 
side to side, his transition was always in the direction opposite to 
theirs. He had nothing in common with those who fly from extreme 
to extreme, and who regard the party which they have deserted with 
an animosity far exceeding that of consistent enemies, His place 
was on the debatable ground between the hostile divisions of the 
community, and he never wandered far beyond the frontier of either. 

The party to which he at any moment belonged was the party which, 
_ at that moment, he liked least, because it was the party of which at 

that moment he had the nearest view. He was therefore always 
_ Severe upon his violent associates, and was always in friendly rela- 

tions with his moderate opponents. Every faction in the day of its 
insolent and vindictive triumph incurred his censure; and every 
faction, when vanquished and persecuted, found in him a protector. 
To his lasting honour it must be mentioned that he attempted to save 
those victims whose fate has left the deepest stain both on the Whig 
and on the Tory name. 

He had greatly distinguished himself in opposition, and had thus 
‘drawn on himself the royal displeasure, which was indeed so strong 
_ that he was not admitted into the Council of Thirty without much 
’ difficulty and long altercation. As soon, however, ashe had obtained 
a footing at court, the charms of his manner and of his conversation 

made him a favourite. He was seriously alarmed by the violence of 
the public discontent. He thought that liberty was for the present 
safe, and that order and legitimate authority were in danger. He 
therefore, as was his fashion, joined himself to the weaker side. 
_ Perhaps his conversion was not wholly disinterested. For study 
and reflection, though they had emancipated him from many vulgar 
_ prejudices, had left him a slave to vulgar desires. Money he did 
_ not want; and there is no evidence that he ever obtained it by any means 
which, in that age, even severe censors considered as dishonourable; 
but rank and power had strong attractions for him. He pretended, 
indeed, that he considered titles and great offices as baits which 
- could allure none but fools, that he hated business, pomp, and pag- 
eantry, and that his dearest wish was to escape from the bustle and 
glitter of Whitehall to the quiet woods which surrounded his ancient 
_ Inansion in Nottinghamshire; but his conduct was not a little at vari- 
ance with his professions. In truth he wished to command the 
_ Tespect at once of courtiers and of philosophers, to be admired for 
_ attaining high dignities, and to be at the same time admired for de- 
'spising them. 

Sunderland was Secretary of State. In this man the political im- 
Morality of his age was personified in the most lively manner. 
Nature had given him a keen understanding, a restless and mischiev- 
ous temper, a cold heart, and an abject spirit. His mind had under- 

M E.i—6 


~~ 


A 


A 


Ve 


} 


— 


158 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


gone a, training by which all his vices had been nursed up to the 
rankest maturity. At his entrance into public life, he had passed 
several years in diplomatic posts abroad, and had been, during some 
time, minister in France. Every calling has its peculiar temptations. 
There is no injustice in saying that diplomatists, as a class, have 
always been more distinguished by their address, by the art with 
which they win the confidence of those with whom they have to deal, 
and by the ease with which they catch the tone of every society into 
which they are admitted, than by generous enthusiasm or austere 
rectitude; and the relations between Charles and Lewis were such 
that no English nobleman could long reside in France as envoy, and 
retain any patriotic or honourable sentiment. Sunderland camg¢ 
forth from the bad school in which he had been brought up, cunning, 
supple, shameless, free from all prejudices, and destitute of all prin 
ciples. He was, by hereditary connection, a Cavalier: but with the 
Cavaliers he had nothing in common. They were zealous for mon 
archy, and condemned in theory all resistance. Yet they had sturdy 
English hearts which would never have endured realdespotism. He, 
on the contrary, had a languid speculative liking for republican insti 
tutions which was compatible with perfect readiness to bein practice 
the most servile instrument of arbitrary power. Like many other 
accomplished flatterers and negotiators, he was far more skilful in the 
art of reading the characters and practising on the weaknesses of in- 
dividuals, than in the art of discerning the feelings of great masses, 
and of foreseeing the approach of great revolutions. He was adroit 
in intrigue; and it was difficult even for shrewd and experienced men 
who had been amply forewarned of his perfidy to withstand the fas. 
cination of his manner, and to refuse credit to his professions of 
attachment. But he was so intent on observing and courting partic- 
ular persons, that he often forgot to study the temper of the nation. 
He therefore miscalculated grossly with respect to some of the most 
momentous events of his time. More than one 1mportant movement 
and rebound of the public mind took him by surprise; and the world, 
unable to understand how so clever a man could be blind to what 
was clearly discerned by the politicians of the coffee houses, some- 
times attributed to deep design what were in truth mere blunders. 

It was only in private conference that his eminent abilities display- 
ed themselves. In the royal closet, or in a very small circle, he ex- 
ercised great influence. But at the Council board he was taciturn; 
and in the House of Lords he never opened his lips. 

The four confidential advisers of the crown soon found that their 
position was embarrassing and invidious. The other members of the 
Council murmured at a distinction inconsistent with the King’s prom- 
ises; and some of them, with Shaftesbury at their head, again betook 
themselves to strenuous opposition in Parliament. The agitation, 
which had been suspended by the late changes, speedily became more 
violent than ever. It was in vain that Charles offered to grant to the 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 159 


Commons any security for the Protestant religion which they could 
_ devise, rovided only that they would not touch the order of succes- 
sion. They would hear of no compromise. They would have the 
_ Exclusion Bill, and nothing but the Exclusion Bill. The King, there- 
_ fore, a few weeks after he had publicly promised to take no step 
_ without the advice of his new Council, went down to the House of 
_ Lords without mentioning his intention in Council, and prorogued the 
_ Parliament. 
_ The day of that prorogation, the twenty-sixth of May, 1679, is a 
‘great era in our history. For on that day the Habeas Corpus Act re- 
ceived the royal assent. From the time of the Great Charter the sub- 
‘stantive law respecting the personal liberty of Englishmen had been 
nearly the same as at present: but it had been ineflicacious for want 
of astringent system of procedure. What was needed was not a new 
Tight, but a prompt and searching remedy; and such a remedy the 
_ Habeas Corpus Act supplied. The King would gladly have refused 
his consent to that measure: but he was about to appeal from his Par- 
liament to his people on the question of the succession, and he could 
not venture, at so critical a moment, to reject a bill which was in the 
highest degree popular. 
_ On the same day the press of England became for a short time free. 
In old times printers had been strictly controlled by the Court of Star 
Chamber. The Long Parliament had abolished the Star Chamber, 
but had, in spite of the philosophical and eloquent expostulation of 
‘Milton, established and maintained a censorship. Soon after the Res- 
_ toration, an Act had been passed which prohibited the printing of un- 
licensed books; and it had been provided that this Act should con- 
_ tinue in force till the end of the first session of the next Parliament. 
_ That moment had now arrived; and the King, in the very act of dis- 
Missing the House, emancipated the Press. 
’ Shortly after the prorogation came a dissolution and another gen- 
eral election. The zeal and strength of the opposition were at the 
height. The cry for the Exclusion Bill was louder than ever; and 
with this cry was mingled another cry, which fired the blood of the 
‘multitude, but which was heard with regret and alarm by all judi- 
cious friends of freedom. Not only the rights of the Duke of York, 
an avowed Papist, but those of his two daughters, sincere and zealous 
_ Protestants, were assailed. It was confidently affirmed that the eldest 
hatural son of the King had been born in wedlock, and was lawful 
_ heir to the crown. 
__ Charles, while a wanderer on the Continent, had fallen in at the 
te with Lucy Walters, a Welsh girl of great beauty, but of weak 
_ understanding and dissolute manners. She became his mistress, and 
ae him witha son. A suspicious lover might have had _his 
doubts; for the lady had several admirers, and was not supposed to 
becruel to any. Charles, however, readily took her word, and pour- 
ed forth on little James Crofts, as the boy was then called, an over- 


, 
7 


160 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


flowing fondness, such as seemed hardly to belong to that cool and 
careless nature. Soon after the restoration, the young favourite, who- 
had learned in France the exercises then considered necessary to a 
fine gentleman, made his appearance at Whitehall. He was lodgedin 
the palace, attended by pages, and permitted to enjoy several distinc- 
tions which had till then been confined to princes of the blood royal. 
He was married, while still in tender youth, to Anne &cott, heiress of 
the noble house of Buccleuch. He took her name, and received with 
her hands possession of her ample domains. The estate which he had 
acquired by this match was popularly estimated at not less than ten 
thousand pounds a year. ‘Titles, and favours more substantial than 
titles, were lavished on him. He was made Duke of Monmouth, 
in England, Duke of Buccleuch in Scotland, a Knight of the Garter, 
Master of the Horse, Commander of the first troop of Life Guards, 
Chief Justice of Eyre south of Trent, and Chancellor of the University 
of Cambridge. Nor did he appear to the public unworthy of his high 
fortunes. His countenance was eminently handsome and engaging, 
his temper sweet, his manners polite and affable. Though a libertine, 
he won the hearts of the Puritans. Though he was known to have 
been privy to the shameful attack on Sir John Coventry, he easily ob- 
tained the forgiveness of the Country Party. Even austere moralists 
owned that, in such a court, strict conjugal fidelity was scarcely to be 
expected from one who, while a child, had been married to another 
child. Even patriots were willing to excuse a headstrong boy for 
visiting with immoderate vengeance an insult offered to his father. 
And soon the stain left by loose amours and midnight brawls was ef- 
faced by honourable exploits. When Charles and Lewis united their 
forces against Holland, Monmouth commanded the English auxiliaries 
who were sent to the Continent, and approved himself a gallant sol- 
dier and a not unintelligent officer. On his return he found himself 
the most popular man in the kingdom. Nothing was withheld from 
him but the crown; nor did even the crown seem to be absolutely 
beyond his reach. The distinction which had most injudiciously 
been made between him and the highest nobles had produced evil 
consequences. "When a boy he had been invited to put on his hat in 
the presence chamber, while Howards and Seymours stood uncovered 
round him. When foreign princes died, he had mourned for them 
in the long purple cloak, which no other subject, except the Duke of 
York and Prince Rupert, was permitted to wear. It was natural that 
these things should lead him to regard himself as a legitimate prince 
of the House of Stuart. Charles, even at a ripe age, was devoted to 
his pleasures and regardless of his dignity. It could hardly be thought 
incredible that he should at twenty have secretly gone through the 
form of espousing a lady whose beauty had fascinated him. hile 
Monmouth was still a child, and while the Duke of York still passed 
for a Protestant, it was rumoured throughout the country, and even 
in circles which ought to have been well informed, that the King had 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 161 


; made Lucy Walters his wife, and that, if every one had his right, her 


7 : 


son would be Prince of Wales. Much was said of a certain black box 
which, according to the vulgar belief, contained the contract of mar- 


‘riage. When Monmouth had returned from the Low Countries with 


a high character for valour and conduct, and when the Duke of York 
was known to be a member of a church detested by the great majority 
of the nation, this idle story became important. For it there was not 
the slightest evidence. Against it there was the solemn asseveration 
of the King, made before his Council, and by his order communicated 
to his people. But the multitude, always fond of romantic adven- 
tures, drank in eagerly the tale of the secret espousals and the black 
box. Some chiefs of the opposition acted on this occasion as they 
acted with respect to the more odious fable of Oates, and countenanced 
a story which they must have despised. 

The interest which the populace took in him whom they regarded 


-as the champion of the true religion, and the rightful heir of the 


British throne, was kept up by every artifice. When Monmouth ar- 


_ rived in London at midnight, the watchmen were ordered by the 


magistrates to proclaim the joyful event through the streets of the 
City: the people left their beds: bonfires were lighted: the windows 


_ were illuminated: the churches were opened; and a merry peal rose 


from all the steeples. When he travelled, he was everywhere re- 


- ceived with not less pomp, and with far more enthusiasm, than had 


ea 


been displayed when Kings had made progresses through the realm. 
He was escorted from mansion to mansion by long cavalcades of 
armed gentlemen and yeomen. Cities poured forth their whole 
population to receive him. Electors thronged round him, to assure 
him that their votes were at his disposal. To such a height were 
his pretensions carried, that he not only exhibited on his escutcheon 


_ the lions of England and the lilies of France without the baton sin- 


ister under which, according to the law of heraldry, they should have 


_ been debruised in token of his illegitimate birth, but ventured to 


_ touch for the king’s evil. At the same time he neglected no art of 


condescension by which the love of the multitude could be concili- 


ated. He stood godfather to the children of the peasantry, mingled 
_ In every rustic sport, wrestled, played at quarterstaff, and won foot- 


races in his boots against fleet runners in shoes. 

_ itis acurious circumstance that, at two of the greatest conjunctures 

in our history, the chiefs of the Protestant party should have com- 

mitted the same error, and should by that error have greatly endan- 
ered their country and their religion. At the death of Edward the 


‘Sixth they set up the Lady Jane, without any show of birthright, in 


Opposition, not only to their enemy Mary, but also to Elizabeth, the 
true hope of England and of the Reformation. Thus the most re- 
spectable Protestants, with Elizabeth at their head, were forced to 
make common cause with the Papists. In the same manner, a 
hundred and thirty years later, a part of the opposition, by setting 


TG 20/4, HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


up Monmouth asa claimant of the crown, attacked the rights, not 
only of James, whom they justly regarded as_ an implacable foe of 
their faith and their liberties, but also of the Prince and Princess of 
Orange, who were eminently marked out, both by situation and by 
personal qualities, as the defenders of all free governments and of all 
reformed churches. 

The folly of this course speedily became manifest. At present 
the popularity of Monmouth constituted a great part of the strength 
of the opposition. The elections went against the court: the day 
fixed for the meeting of the Houses drew near; and it was necessary 
that the King should determine on some line of conduct. Those 
who advised him discerned the first faint signs of a change of public 
feeling, and hoped that, by mney postponing the conflict, he would 
be able to secure the victory. e therefore, without even asking 
the opinion of the Council of Thirty, resolved to prorogue the new 
Parliament before it entered on business. Atthe same time the Duke 
of York, who had returned from Brussels, was ordered to retire to 
Scotland, and was placed at the head of the administration of that 
kingdom. 

Temple’s plan of government was now avowedly abandoned and 
very soon forgotten. The Privy Council again became what it had 
been. Shaftesbury and those who were connected with him in pol- 
itics resigned their seats. Temple himself, as was his wont in 
unquiet times, retired to his garden and his library. Essex quitted 
the Board of Treasury, and cast in his lot with the opposition. But 
Halifax, disgusted and alarmed by the violence of his old associates, 
and Sunderland, who never quitted place while he could hold it, re- 
mained in the King’s service. 

In consequence of the resignations which took place at this con- 
eed Radia the way to greatness was left clear to a new set of aspirants. 

wo statesmen, who subsequently rose to the highest eminence 
which a British subject can reach, soon began to attract a large 
share of the public attention. These were Lawrence Hyde and 
Sidney Godolphin. 

iawrence Hyde was the second son of the Chancellor Clarendon, 
and was brother of the first Duchess of York. He had excellent 
parts, which had been improved by parliamentary and diplomatic 
experience; but the infirmities of his temper detracted much from 
the effective strength of his abilities. Negotiator and courtier as he 
was, he never learned the art of governing or of concealing his emo- 
tions. When prosperous, he was insolent and boastful: when he 
sustained a check, his undisguised mortification doubled the triumph 
of his enemies: very slight provocations sufficed to kindle his anger; 
and when he was angry he said bitter things which he forgot as soon 
as he was pacified, but which others remembered many years. His 
quickness and penetration would have made him a consummate man 
of business but for his selfsufficiency and impatience. His writings 


‘> 
n 

f 

{; 2 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 163 


4 
te that he had many of the qualities of an orator: but his irrita 


ility prevented him from doing himself justice in debate; for nothing 


was easier than to goad him into a passion; and, from the moment 
when he went into a passion, he was at the mercy of opponents far 
_ inferior to him in capacity. 


Unlike most of the leading politicians of that generation he was a 


_ consistent, dogged, and rancorous party man, a Cavalier of the old 


- school, a zealous champion of the Crown and of the Church, and a 
_ hater of Republicans and Nonconformists. He had consequently a 
great body of personal adherents. The clergy especially looked on 
_ him as their own man, and extended to his foibles an indulgence of 


which, to say the truth, he stood in some need: for he drank deep; 
and when he was in a rage,—and he very often was in a rage,—he 


_ swore like a porter. 


a. 
is 


He now succeeded Essex at the treasury. It is to be observed 


_ that the place of First Lord of the Treasury had not then the impor- 
__ tance and dignity which now belong to it. When there was a 


Lord Treasurer, that great officer was generally prime minister: but, 
when the white staff was in commission, the chief commissioner 
hardly ranked so high as a Secretary of State. It was not till the 


time of Walpole that the First Lord of the Treasury became, 
ag a humbler name, all that the Lord High Treasurer had 
en. 


Godolphin had been bred a page at Whitehall, and had early acquired 
all the flexibility and the selfpossession of a veteran courtier. He 
was laborious, clearheaded, and profoundly versed in the details of 


finance. Every government, therefore, found him an useful servant; 


and there was nothing in his opinions or in his character which could 
prevent him from serving any government. ‘‘Sidney Godolphin,” 


_ said Charles, ‘‘is never in the way, and never out of the way.” 


This pointed remark goes far to explain Godolphin’s extraordinary 


_ success in life. 


He acted at different times with both the great political parties: 


but he never shared in the passions of either. Like most men of 


cautious tempers and prosperous fortunes, he had a strong disposition 
to support whatever existed. He disliked revolutions; and, for the 
same reason for which he disliked revolutions, he disliked counter 
revolutions. His deportment was remarkably grave and reserved: 
but his personal tastes were low and frivolous; and most of the time 
which he could save from public business was spent in racing, card- 


Y playing, and cockfighting. He now sate below Rochester <i the 


Board of Treasury, and distinguished himself there by assiduity and 
intelligence. 


Before the new Parliament was suffered to meet for the despatch of 


_ business a whole year elapsed, an eventful year, which has left lasting 


oe : 


traces in our manners and language. Never before had political con- 
troversy been carried on with so much freedom. Never before had 


164 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. ~ 


political clubs existed with so elaborate an organisation or so formidable 
an influence. The one question of the Exclusion occupied the public 
mind. All the presses and pulpits of the realm took part in the conflict. 
On one side it was maintained that the constitution and religion of the 
state could never be secure under a Popish King; on the other, that 
the right of James to wear the crown in his turn was derived from 
God, and could not be annulled, even by the consent of all the branches 
of the legislature. Every county, every town, every family, was in 
agitation. The civilities and hospitalities of neighbourhood were 
interrupted. The dearest ties of friendship and of blood were sun- 
dered. “Even schoolboys were divided into angry parties, and the ~ 
Duke of York and the Earl of Shaftesbury had zealous adherents on 
all the forms of Westminster and Eton. ‘The theatres shook with the 
roar of the contending factions. PopeJoan was brought on the stage 
by the zealous Protestants. Pensioned poets filled their prologues and 
epilogues with eulogies on the King and the Duke. The malecontents 
besieged the throne with petitions, demanding that Parliament might 
be forthwith convened, ‘The royalists sent up addresses, expressing 
the utmost abhorrence of all who presumed to dictate to the sovereign. 
The citizens of London assembled by tens of thousands to burn the 
Pope in effigy. The government posted cavalry at Temple Bar, and 
placed ordnance round Whitehall. In that year our tongue was 
enriched with two words, Mob and Sham, remarkable memorials of a 
season of tumult and imposture.* Opponents of the court were 
called Birminghams, Petitioners, and Exclusionists. 'Those who took 
the King’s side were Antibirminghams, Abhorrers, and Tantivies. 
These appellations soon became obsolete: but at this time were first - 
heard two nicknames which, though originally given in insult, were 
soon assumed with pride, which are still in daily use, which have 
spread as widely as the English race, and which will last as long as 
the English literature. It is a curious circumstance that one of these 
nicknames was of Scotch, and the other of Irish, origin. Bothin Scot- 
land and in Ireland, misgovernment had called into existence bands of 
desperate men whose ferocity was heightened by religious enthusiasm. 
In Scotland some of the persecuted Covenanters, driven mad by 
oppression, had lately murdered the Primate, had taken arms against 
the government, had obtained some advantages against the King’s — 
forces, and had not been put down till Monmouth, at the head of some 
troops from England, had routed them at Bothwell Bridge. These 
zealots were most numerous among the rustics of the western lowlands, 
who were vulgarly called Whigs. Thus the appellation of Whig was 
fastened on the Presbyterian zealots of Scotland, and was transferred 
to those English politicians who showed a disposition to oppose the 
court, and to treat Protestant Nonconformists with indulgence. The 
bogs of Ireland, at the same time, afforded a refuge to Popish outlaws, 


* North’s Examen, 231, 574, 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 165 


much resembling those who were afterwards known as Whiteboys. 

_ These men were then called Tories. The name of Tory was there- 

fore given to Englishmen who refused to concur in excluding a 

Roman Catholic prince from the throne. 

The rage of the hostile factions would have been sufliciently violent, 
if it had been left to itself. But it was studiously exasperated by the 
common enemy of both. Lewis still continued to bribe and flatter 

both the court and the opposition. He exhorted Charles to be firm: 
he exhorted James to raise a civil war in Scotland: he exhorted the 

é pe nies not to flinch, and to rely with confidence on the protection of 

ance. 
_ Through all this agitation a discerning eye might have perceived 
thatthe public opinion was gradually changing. The persecution of the 
Roman Catholics went on; but convictions were no longer matters of 
course. A new brood of false witnesses, among whom a villain named 

- Dangerfield was the must conspicuous, infested the courts: but the 

‘stories of these men, though better constructed than that of Oates, 
found less credit. Juries were no longer so easy of belief as during 
the panic which had followed the murder of Godfrey; and Judges, 

_ who, while the popular frenzy was at the height, had been its most 

- obsequious instruments, now ventured to express some part of what 
they had from the first thought. 

At length, in October 1680, the Parliament met. The Whigs had 
so great a majority in the Commons that the Exclusion Bill went 
through all its stages there without difficulty. The King scarcely 
knew on what members of his own cabinet he could reckon. Hyde 
had been true to his Tory opinions, and had steadily supported the cause 
of hereditary monarchy. But Godolphin, anxious for quiet, and believ- 

- Ing that quiet could be restored only by concession, wished the bill not 

to pass. Sunderland, ever false, ana ever shortsighted, unable to dis- 
cern the signs of approaching reaction, and anxious to conciliate the 
party which he believed to be irresistible, determined to vote against the 

court. The Duchess of Portsmouth implored her royal lover not to 

Tush headlong to destruction. If there were any point on which he 
had a scruple of conscience or of honour, it was the question of the 

Succession; but during some days it seemed that he would submit. 

He wavered, asked what sum the Commons would give him if he 

ielded, and suffered a negotiation to be opened with the leading 
higs. But a deep mutual distrust which had been many years 
growing, and which had been carefully nursed by the arts of France, 
made a treaty impossible. Neither side would place confidence in the 
other. The whole nation now looked with breathless anxiety to the 

House of Lords. The assemblage of peers was large. The King 

_ himself was present. The debate was long, earnest, and occasionally 

_ furious. Some hands were laid on the pommels of swords ina manner 
which revived the recollection of the stormy Parliaments of Edward 

the Third and Richard the Second. Shaftesbury and Essex were 


“ap 


+ 


166 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


joined by the treacherous Sunderland. But the genius of Halifax 

ore down all opposition. Deserted by his most important colleagues 
and opposed to a crowd of able antagonists, he defended the cause of 
the Duke of York, in a succession of speeches which, many years 
later, were remembered as masterpieces of reasoning, of wit, and of 
eloquence. It is seldom that oratory changes votes. Yet the attes- 
tation of contemporaries leaves no doubt that, on this occasion, votes 
were changed by the oratory of Halifax. The Bishops, true to their 
doctrines, supported the principle of hereditary right, and the bill was 
rejected by a great majority.* 

The party which preponderated in the House of Commons, bitterly 
mortified by this defeat, found some consolation in shedding the blood 
of Roman Catholics. William Howard, Viscount Stafford, one of 
the unhappy men who had been accused of a share in the plot, was 
impeached; and on the testimony of Oates and of two other false wit- 
nesses, Dugdale and Turberville, was found guilty of high treason, and 
suffered death. But the circumstances of his trial and execution 
ought to have given an useful warning to the Whig leaders. <A large 
and respectable minority of the House of Lords pronounced the 
prisoner not guilty. The multitude, which a few months before had 
received the dying declarations of Oates’s victims with mockery and 
execrations, now loudly expressed a belief that Stafford wasa murdered 
man. When he with his last breath protested his innocence, the cr 
was, ‘‘God bless you, my Lord! We believe you, my Lord.” 
judicious observer might easily have predicted that the blood then 
shed would shortly have blood. 

The King determined to try once more the experiment of a disso- 
lution. A new Parliament was summoned to meet at Oxford, in 
March, 1681. Since the days of the Plantagenets the Houses had con- 
stantly sat at Westminster, except when the plague was raging in the 
capital: but so extraordinary a conjuncture seemed to require extraor- 
dinary precautions. If the Parliament were held in its usual place 
of assembling, the House of Commons might declare itself permanent, 


* A peer who was present has described the effect of Halifax’s oratory in 
words which I will quote, because, though they have been long in print, they 
ee. probably known to few even of the most curious and dilligent readers of 

istory. 

“Of powerful eloquence and great parts were the Duke’s enemies who did 
assert the Bill; but a noble Lord appeared against it who, that day, in all the 
force of speech, in reason, in arguments of what could concern the public or 
the private interests of men, in honour, in conscience, in estate, did outdo 
himself and every other man; and in fine his conduct and his parts were both 
victorious, and by him all the wit and malice of that party was overthrown.” 

This passage is taken from a memoir of Henry Earl of Peterborough, in a 
volume entitled ‘“ Succinct Genealogies, by Robert Halstead,” fol. 1685. The 
name of Halstead is fictitious. The real authors were the Earl of Peterborough 
himself and hischaplain. The bookis extremely rare. Only twenty-four copies 
were printed, two of which are now in the British Museum. Of these two one 
belonged to George the Fourth, and the other to Mr. Grenville. t 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 167 


and might call for aid on the magistrates and citizens of London. The 
_trainbands might rise to defend Shaftesbury as they had risen forty 
‘years before to defend Pym and Hampden. The Guards might be 
‘overpowered, the palace forced, the King a prisoner in the hands of 
his mutinous subjects. At Oxford there was no such danger. The 
_ University was devoted to the crown; and the gentry of the neighbour- 
hood were generally Tories. Here, therefore, the opposition had 
_ more reason than the King to apprehend violence. 
_ The elections were sharply contested. The Whigs still composed 
-amajority of the House of Commons: but it was plain that the Tory - 
spirit was fast rising throughout the country. It should seem that 
the sagacious and versatile Shaftesbury ought to have foreseen the 
coming change, and to have consented to the compromise which the 
court offered: but he appears to have forgotten his old tactics. In- 
stead of making dispositions which, in the worst event, would have 
secured his retreat, he took up a position in which it was necessary 
_ that he should either conquer or perish. Perhaps his head, strong as 
it was, had been turned by popularity, by success, and by the excite- 
ment of conflict. Perhaps he had spurred his party till he could no 
_ longer curb it, and was really hurried on headlong by those whom he 
seemed to guide. | 
_ The eventful day arrived. The meeting at Oxford resembled 
_ Yather that of a Polish Diet than that of an English Parliament. The 
- Whig members were escorted by great numbers of their armed and 
mounted tenants and serving men, who exchanged looks of defiance 
_ with theroyal Guards. ‘The slightest provocation might, under such 
- circumstances, have prodnced a civil war; but neither side dared to 
_ strike the first blow. The King again offered to consent to anything 
but the Exclusion Bill. The Commons were determined to accept 
nothing but the Exclusion Bill. In a few days the Parliament was 
_ again dissolved. 
_ The King had triumphed. The reaction, which had begun some 
_ months before the meeting of the House at Oxford, now went rapidly 
‘on. The nation, indeed, was still hostile to Popery: but, when men 
reviewed the whole history of the plot, they felt that their Protestant 
zeal had hurried them into folly and crime, and could scarcely believe 
_ that they had been induced by nursery tales to clamour for the blood 
_ of fellow subjects and fellow Christians. The most loyal, indeed, 
_ could not deny that the administration of Charles had often been 
- highly Qlamable. But men who had not the full information which 
_ We possess touching his dealings with France, and who were disgusted 
; by the violence of the Whigs, enumerated the large concessions which 
_ during the last few years he had made to his Parliaments, and the 
_ still larger concessions which he had declared himself willing to make. 
_ He had consented to the laws which excluded Roman Catholics from 
_ the House of Lords, from the Privy Council, and from all civil and 
_ Mnilitary offices. He had passed the Habeas Corpus Act. If securi- 


oy 


r 

‘a! 

a 
nd 


~ =ahh. a 


168 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


ties yet stronger had not been provided against the dangers to which 
the constitution and the Church might be exposed under a Roman 
Catholic sovereign, the fault lay, not with Charles who had invited 
the Parliament to propose such securities, but with those Whigs who 
had refused to hear of any substitute for the Exclusion Bill. One 
thing only had thé King denied to his people. He had refused to take 
away his brother’s birthright. And was there not good reason to he- 
lieve that this refusal was prompted by laudable feelings? What self- 
ish motive could faction itself impute to the royal mind? The Ex- 
clusion Bill did not curtail the reigning King’s prerogatives, or dimin- 
ish his income. Indeed, by passing it, he might easily have obtained 
an ample addition to his own revenue. And what was it to him who 
ruled after him? Nay, if he had personal predilections, they were 
known to be rather in favour of the Duke of Monmouth than of the 
Duke of York. The most natural explanation of the King’s conduct 
seemed to be that, careless as was his temper and loose as were his 
morals, he had, on this occasion, acted from a sense of duty and 
honour. And, if so, would the nation compel him to do what he 
thought criminal and disgraceful? 'To apply, even by strictly consti- 
tutional means, a violent pressure to his conscience, seemed to zealous 
royalists ungenerousand undutiful. But strictly constitutional means 
were not the only means which the Whigs were disposed to employ. 
Signs were already discernible which portended the approach of great 
troubles. Men, who, in the time of the civil war and of the Common- 
wealth, had acquired an odious notoriety, had emerged from the ob- 
scurity in which, after the Restoration, they had hidden themselves 
from the general hatred, showed their confident and busy faces every- 
where, and appeared to anticipate a second reign of the Saints. An- 
other Naseby, another High Court of Justice, another usurper on the 
throne, the Lords again ejected from their hall by violence, the Uni- 
versities again purged, the Church again robbed and persecuted, the 
Puritans again dominant, to such results did the desperate policy of 
the opposition seem to tend. 

Strongly moved by these apprehensions, the majority of the upper’ 
and middle classes hastened to rally round the throne. The situation 
of the King bore, at this time, a great resemblance to that in which 
his father stood just after the Remonstrance had been voted. But 
the reaction of 1641 had not been suffered to run its course. Charles 
the First, at the very moment when his people, long estranged, were 
returning to him with hearts disposed to reconciliation, had, by a per- 
fidious violation of the fundamental laws of the realm, forfeited their 
confidence for ever. Had Charles the Second taken a similar course, 
had he arrested the Whig leaders in an irregular manner, had he im- 
peached them of high treason before a tribunal which had no legal 
jurisdiction over them, it is highly probable that they would speedily 
have regained the ascendency which they had lost. Fortunately for 
himself, he was induced, at this crisis, to adopt a policy singularly 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. a 169 


judicious. He determined to conform to the law, but at the same 
time to make vigorous and unsparing use of the law against his ad- 
versaries. He was not bound to convoke a Parliament till three years 
‘should have elapsed. He was not much distressed for money. The 
produce of the taxes which had been settled on him for life exceeded 
the estimate. He was at peace with all the world. He could retrench 
his expenses by giving up the costly and useless settlement of Tan- 
-gier; and he might hope for pecuniary aid from France. He had, 
therefore, ample time and means for a systematic attack on the oppo- 
sition under the forms of the constitution. The Judges were remov- 
able at his pleasure: the juries were nominated by the Sheriffs; and, 
‘in almost all the counties of England, the Sheriffs were nominated 
by himself. Witnesses, of the same class with those who had recently 
| es away the lives of Papists, were ready to swear away the lives 
of Whigs. 
oe the first victim was College, a noisy and violent demagogue of 
‘mean birth and education. He was by trade a joiner, and was cele- 
brated as the inventor of the Protestant flail.* He had been at Oxford 
when the Parliament sate there, and was accused of having planned 
a rising and an attack on the King’s guards. Evidence was given 
agaist him by Dugdale and Turberville, the same infamous men who 
had, a few months earlier, borne false witness against Stafford. In 
the sight of a jury of country squires no Exclusionist was likely to 
find favour. College was convicted. The crowd which filled the 
court house of Oxford received the verdict with a roar of exultation, 
as barbarous as that which he and his friends had been in the habit 
of raising when innocent Papists were doomed to the gallows. His 
execution was the beginning of a new judicial massacre not less atro- 
‘cious than that in which he had himself borne a share. 

The government, emboldened by this first victory, now aimed a 
‘blow at an enemy of avery different class. It was resolved that 
‘Shaftesbury should be brought to trial for his life. Evidence was 
collected which, it was thought, would support a charge of treason. 
But the facts which it was nccessary to prove were alleged to have 
been committed in London. The Sheriffs of London, chosen by the 
‘citizens, were zealous Whigs. They named a Whig grand jury, 
which threw out the bill. This defeat, far from discouraging those 
who advised the King, suggested to them a new and daring scheme. 
‘Since the charter of the capital was in their way, that charter must 
be annulled. It was pretended, therefore, that the City had by some 
irregularities forfeited its municipal privileges; and proceedings were 
instituted against the corporation in the Court of King’s Bench. At 
the same time those laws which had, soon after the Restoration, been 


vi * This is mentioned in the curious work entitled ‘‘Ragguaglio della solenne 
Comparsa fatta in Roma gli otto di Gennaio, 1687, dall’ illustrissimo et ecceh 
lentissimo signor Conte di Castlemaine.” 


170 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


enacted against Nonconformists, aud which had remained dormant 
during the ascendency of the Whigs, were enforced all over the 
kingdom with extreme rigour. 

et the spirit of the Whigs was not subdued. Though in evil 
plight, they were still a numerous and powerful party; and, as they 
mustered strong in the large towns, and especially in the capital, they 
made a noise and a show more than proportioned to their real force. 
Animated by the recollection of past triumphs, and by the sense of 
present oppression, they overrated both their strength and their 
wrongs. It was not in their power to make out that clear and over- 
whelming case which can alone justify so violent a remedy as resist- - 
ance to an established government. Whatever they might suspect, 
they could not prove that their sovereign had entered into a treaty 
with France against the religion and liberties of England. What was 
apparent was not sufficient to warrant an appeal to the sword. If 
the Lords had thrown out the Exclusion Bill, they had thrown it out 
in the exercise of a right coeval with the constitution. If the King 
had dissolved the Oxford Parliament, he had done so by virtue of a 
prerogative which had never been questioned. If he had, since the 
dissolution, done some harsh things, still those things were in strict 
conformity with the letter of the law, and with the recent practice of 
the malecontents themselves. If he had prosecuted his opponents, 
he had prosecuted them according to the proper forms, and before the_ 
proper tribunals. The evidence now produced for the crown was at 
least as worthy of credit asthe evidence on which the noblest blood 
of England had lately been shed by the opposition. The treatment 
which an accused Whig had now to expect from judges, advocates, 
sheriffs, juries and spectators, was no worse than the treatment which 
had lately been thought by the Whigs good enough for an accused 
Papist. If the privileges of the City of London were attacked, they 
were attacked, not by military violence or by any disputable exercise 
of prerogative, but according to the regular practice of Westminster 
Hall. No tax was imposed by royal authority. No law was sus- 
pended. The Habeas Corpus Act was respected. Even the Test Act 
was enforced. The opposition, therefore, could not bring home to 
the King that species of misgovernment which alone could justify 
insurrection. And, even had his misgovernment been more flagrant 
than it was, insurrection would still have been criminal, because it 
was almost certain to be unsuccessful. The situation of the Whigs 
in 1682 differed widely from that of the Roundheads forty years be- 
fore. ‘Those who took up arms against Charles the First acted under 
the authority of a Parliament which had been legally assembled, and 
which could not, without its own consent, be legally dissolved. The 
opponents of Charles the Second were private men. Almost all the 
military and naval resources of the kingdom had been at the disposal 
of those who resisted Charles the First. All the military and naval 
resources of the kingdom were at the disposal of Charles the Second. 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 171 


The House of Commons had been supported by at least half the 
“nation against Charles the First. But those who were disposed to 
levy war against Charles the Second were certainly a minority. It 
could hardly be doubted, therefore, that, if they attempted a rising, 
they would fail. Still less could it be doubted that their failure would 
"aggravate every evil of which they complained. The true policy of 
the Whigs was to submit with patience to adversity which was the 
“natural consequence and the just punishment of their errors, to wait 
patiently for that turn of public feeling which must inevitably come, 
to observe the law, and to avail themselves of the protection, imper- 
fect indeed, but by no means nugatory, which the law afforded to in- 
“nocence. Unhappily they took avery different course. Unscrupu- 
‘Jous and hotheaded chiefs of the party formed and discussed schemes 
of resistance, and were heard, if not with approbation, yet with the 
“show of acquiescence, by much better men than themselves. It was 
proposed that there should be simultaneous insurrections in London, 
in Cheshire, at Bristol, and at New Castle. Communications were 
opened with the discontented Presbyterians of Scotland, who were 
suffering under a tyranny such as England, in the worst times, had 
never known, While the leaders of the opposition thus revolved 
plans of open rebellion, but were still restrained by fears or scruples 
from taking any decisive step, a design of a very different kind was 
“meditated by some of their accomplices. To fierce spirits, unre- 
‘strained by principle, or maddened by fanaticism, it seemed that to 
Waylay and murder the King and his brother was the shortest and surest 
way of vindicating the Protestant religionand the liberties of England. 
A place and atime were named; and the details of the butchery were 
equently discussed, if not definitely arranged. This scheme was 
ie but to few, and was concealed with especial care from the 
upright and humane Russell, and from Monmouth, who, though not 
aman of delicate conscience, would have recoiled with horror from 
the guilt of parricide. Thus there were two plots, one within the 
other. The object of the great Whig plot was to raise the nation in 
arms against the government. The lesser plot, commonly called the 
“Rye House Plot, in which only a few desperate men were concerned, 
had for its object the assassination of the King and of the heir pre- 
sumptive. 
_ Both plots were soon discovered. Cowardly traitors hastened to 
“save themselves, by divulging all, and more than all, that had passed 
in the deliberations of the party. That only a small minority of those 
who meditated resistance had admitted into their minds the thought 
Of assassination is fully established: but, as the two conspiracies ran 
‘into each other, it was not difficult for the government to confound 
them together. The just indignation excited by the Rye House Plot 
Was extended for a time to the whole Whig body. . The King was 
reat liberty to exact full vengeance for years of restraint and 
humiliation. Shaftesbury, indeed, had escaped the fate which his 


172 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


manifold perfidy had well deserved. He had seen that the ruin of 
his party was at hand, had in vain endeavoured to make his peace 

with the royal brothers, had fled to Holland, and had died there, 

under the generous protection of a government which he had cruelly 

wronged. Monmouth threw himself at his father’s feet and found 

mercy, but soon gave new offence, and thought it prudent to go into 

voluntary exile. Essex perished by his own hand in the Tower. Rus- 
sell, who appears to have been guilty of no offence falling within the 
definition of high treason, and Sidney, of whose guilt no legal evidence 
could be produced, were beheaded in defiance of law and justice. 
Russell died with the fortitude of a Christian, Sidney with the forti- 
tude of a Stoic. Some active politicians of meaner rank were sent to 
the gallows. Many quitted the country. Numerous prosecutions 
for misprision of treason, for libel, and for conspiracy were instituted. 

Convictions were obtained without difficulty from Tory juries, and 
rigorous punishments were inflicted by courtly judges. With these 
criminal proceedings were joined civil proceedings scarcely less 
formidable. Actions were brought against persons who had defamed 
the Duke of York; and damages tantamount to a sentence of per- 
petual imprisonment were demanded by the plaintiff, and without 
difficulty obtained. The Court of King’s Bench pronounced that the 

franchises of the City of London were forfeited to the Crown. 

Flushed with this great victory, the government proceeded to attack | 
the constitutions of other corporations which were governed by Whig 
officers, and which had been in the habit of returning Whig members 
to Parliament. Borough after borough was compelled to surrender 
its privileges; and new charters were granted which gave the ascend- 
ency everywhere to the Tories. 

These proceedings, however reprehensible, had yet the semblance 
of legality. They were also accompanied by an act intended to quiet 
the uneasiness with which many loyal men looked forward to the 
accession of a Popish sovereign. The Lady Anne, younger daughter 
of the Duke of York by his first wife, was married to George, a 
prince of the orthodox House of Denmark. The Tory gentry and 
clergy might now flatter themselves that the Church of England had 
been effectually secured without any violation of the order of succes- 
sion. The King and the heir presumptive were nearly of the same 
age. Both were approaching the decline of life. The King’s health 
was good. It was therefore probable that James, if he came to the 
throne, would have but a short reign. Beyond his reign there was 

the gratifying prospect of a long series of Protestant sovereigns. 

' The liberty of unlicensed printing was of little or no use to the 
vanquished party; for the temper of judges and juries was such that 
no writer whom the government prosecuted for a libel had any chance 
of escaping. The dread of punishment therefore did all that a cenor- 
ship could have done. Meanwhile, the pulpits resounded with harangues 
against the sinofrebellion. The treatises in which Filmer maintained 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. _ 178 


| t hereditary despotism was the form of government ordained by 
od, and that limited monarchy was a pernicious absurdity, had re- 


cently appeared, and had been favourably received by a large section 
of the Tory party. The university of Oxford, on the very day on 
“which Russell was put to death, adopted by a solemn public act 


, 


ese Strange doctrines, and ordered the political works of Buch- 
i Milton, and Baxter to be publicly burned in the court of the 
Schools. 


“as 


_ Thus emboldened, the King at length ventured to overstep the 
‘bounds which he had during some years observed, and to violate the 
lain letter of the law. The law was that not more than three years 
hould pass between the dissolving of one Parliament and the convok- 
ng of another. But, when three years had elapsed after the disso- 
tion of the Parliament which sate at Oxford, no writs were issued 
or an election. This infraction of the constitution was the more 
eprehensible, because the King had little reason to fear a meeting 
vith a new House of Commons. The counties were generally on 
his side; and many boroughs in which the Whigs had lately held 
Sway had been so remodelled that they were certain to return none 
but courtiers. 
Ina short time the law was again violated in order to gratify the 
uke of York. ‘That prince was, partly on account of his religion, 
nd partly on account of the sternness and harshness of his nature, 
unpopular that it had been thought necessary to keep him out of 
ight while the Exclusion Bill was before Parliament, lest his appear- 
nce should give an advantage to the party which was struggling to 
eprive him of his birthright. He had therefore been sent to govern 
cotland, where the savage old tyrant Lauderdale was sinking into 
the grave. Even Lauderdale was now outdone. The administration 
of James was marked by odious laws, by barbarous punishments, 
and by judgments to the iniquity of which even that age furnished 
no parallel. The Scottish Privy Counsel had power to put state 
risoners to the question. Butthe sight wasso dreadful that, as soon 
s the boots appeared, even the most servile and hardhearted courtiers 
astened out of the chamber. The board was sometimes quite de- 
erted: and it was at length found necessary to make an order that the 
hembers should keep their seats on such occasions. The Duke of 
fork, it was remarked, seemed to take pleasure in the spectacle 
which some of the worst men then living were unable to contemplate 
Without pity and horror. He not only came to Council when the 
orture was to be inflicted, but watched the agonies of the sufferers 
vith that sort of interest and complacency with which men observe 
curious experiment in science. Thus he employed himself at Edin- 
gh, till the event of the conflict between the court and the Whigs 
vas no longer doubtful. He then returned to England: but he was 
till excluded by the Test Act from all public employment; nor did 
he King at first think it safe to violate a statute which the great 


174 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. ; 


majority of his most loyal subjects regarded as one of the chief 
securities of their religion and of their civil rights. When, however, 
it appeared, from a succession of trials, that the nation had patience 
to endure almost anything that the government had courage to do, 
Charles ventured to dispense with the law in his brother’s favour. 
The Duke again took his seat in the Council, and resumed the direc- 
tion of naval affairs. 
These breaches of the constitution excited, it is true, some mur- 
murs among the moderate Tories, and were not unanimously ap- 
proved even by the King’s ministers. Halifax in particular, now a 
Marquess and Lord Privy Seal, had, from the very day on which the 
Tories had by his help gained the ascendant, begun to turn Whig. 
As soon as the Exclusion Bill had been thrown out, he had pressed 
the House of Lords to make provision against the danger to which, 
in the next reign, the liberties and religion of the nation might be 
exposed. He now saw with alarm the violence of that reaction which 
was, in no small measure, his own work. He did not try to conceal 
the scorn which he felt for the servile doctrines of the University of 
Oxford. He detested the French alliance. He disapproved of the 
long intermission of Parliaments. He regretted the severity with 
which the vanquished party was treated. He who, when the Whigs 
were predominant, had ventured to pronounce Stafford not guilty, 
ventured, when they were vanquished and helpless, to intercede for 
Russell. At one of the last Councils which Charles held a remark- 
able scene took place. The charter of Massachusetts had been for- 
feited. A question arose how, for the future, the colony should be 
governed. ‘The general opinion of the board was that the whole 
power, legislative as well as executive, should abide in the crown. 
Halifax took the opposite side, and argued with great energy 
against absolute monarchy, and in favour of representative gov- 
ernment. It was vain, he said, to think that a population, sprung 
from the English stock, and animated by English feelings, would 
long bear to be deprived of English institutions. Life, he exclaimed, 
would not be worth having in a country where liberty and property 
were at the mercy of one despotic master. The Duke of York was 
greatly incensed by this language, and represented to his brother the 
danger of retaining in office a man who appeared to be infected with 
all the worst notions of Marvell and Sidney. 
Some modern writers have blamed Halifax for continuing in the 
ministry while he disapproved of the manner in which both domestic 
and foreign affairs were conducted. But this censure is unjust. 
ladeed it is to be remarked that the word ministry, in the sense in 
which we use it, was then unknown.* The thing itself did not exist; 
for it belongs to an age in which parliamentary government is fully 


* North’s Examen, 69, 


Eee HISTORY OF ENGLAND. | 15 


‘established. At present the chief servants of the crown form one 
body. They are understood to be on terms of friendly confidence 
with each other, and to agree as to the main principles on which the 
executive administration ought to be conducted. If a slight differ- 
ence of opinion arises among them, it is easily compromised: but, if 
one of them differs from the rest on a vital point, it is his duty to 
resign. While he retains his office, he is held responsible even for 
steps which he has tried to dissuade his colleagues from taking. In 
the seventeenth century, the heads of the various branches of the 
administration were bound together in no such partnership. Each 
of them was accountable for his own acts, for the use which he made 
of his own official seal, for the documents which he signed, for the 
counsel which he gave to the King. No statesman was held answer- 
able for what he had not himself done, or induced othersto do. If he 
took care not to be the agent in what was wrong, and if, when con- 
sulted, he recommended what was right, he was blameless. It would 
have been thought strange scrupulosity in him to quit his post, be- 
cause his advice as to matters not strictly within his own department 
_was not taken by his master; to leave the Board of Admiralty, for 
example, because the finances were in disorder, or the Board of 
Treasury because the foreign relations of the kingdom were in an 
unsatisfactory state. It was, therefore, by no means unusual to see 
in high office, at the same time, men who avowedly differed from one 
another as widely as ever Pulteney differed from Walpole, or Fox 
from Pitt. 
~The moderate and constitutional counsels of Halifax were timidly 
and feebly seconded by Francis North, Lord Guildford, who had 
lately been made Keeper of the Great Seal. The character of Guild- 
ford has been drawn at full length by his brother Roger North, a 
most intolerant Tory, a most affected and pedantic writer, but a vigi- 
_ Jant observer of all those minute circumstances which throw light on 
_ the dispositions of men. — It is remarkable that the biographer, though 
_ he was under the influence of the strongest fraternal partiality, and 
though he was evidently anxious to produce a flattering likeness, was 
unable to portray the Lord Keeper otherwise than as the most ignoble of 
mankind. Yetthe intellect of Guildford was clear, his industry great, 
his proficiency in letters and science respectable, and his legal learn- 
ing more than respectable. His faults were selfishness, cowardice, 
and meanness. He was not insensible to the power of female beauty, 
_ nor averse from excess in wine. Yet neither wine nor beauty could 
ever seduce the cautious and frugal libertine, even in his earliest 
outh, into one fit of indiscreet generosity. Though of noble descent, 
_he rose in his profession by paying ignominious homage to all who 
_ possessed influence in the courts. He became Chief Justice of the 
Common Pleas, and as such was party to some of the foulest judicial 
murders recorded in our history. He had sense enough to perceive 
- from the first that Oates and Bedloe were impostors: but the Parlia 


aaa 
E 

; ~ 
Bo “_ 


176 - HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


ment and the country were greatly excited: the government had 
yielded to the pressure; and North was not a man to risk a good place 
for the sake of justice and humanity. Accordingly, while he was in 
secret drawing up a refutation of the whole romance of the Popish plot, 
he declared in public that the truth of the story was as plain as the 
sun in heaven, and was not ashamed to browbeat, from the seat of 
judgment, the unfortunate Roman Catholics who were arraigned 
before him for their lives. He had at length reached the highest post 
in the law. Buta lawyer, who, after many years devoted to profes- 
sional labour, engages in politics for the first time at an advanced 
period of life, seldom distinguishes himself as a statesman; and Guild- 
ford was no exception to the general rule. He was indeed so sensible 
of his deficiencies that he never attended the meetings of his col- 
leagues on foreign affairs. Even on questions relating to his own 
profession his opinion had less weight at the Council board than that 
of any man who has ever held the Great Seal. Such as his influence 
was, however, he used it, as far as he dared, on the side of the laws. 

The chief opponent of Halifax was Lawrence Hyde, who had re- 
cently been created Earl of Rochester. Of all Tories, Rochester was 
the most intolerant and uncompromising. The moderate members 
of his party complained that the whole patronage of the Treasury, 
while he was First Commissioner there, went to noisy zealots, whose 
only claim to promotion was that they were always drinking confu- 
sion to Whiggery, and lighting bonfires to burn the Exclusion Bill, 
The Duke of York, pleased with a spirit which so much resembled 
his own, supported his brother in law passionately and obstinately. 

The attempts of the rival ministers to surmount and supplant each 
other kept the court in incessant agitation. Halifax pressed the King 
to summon a Parliament, to grant a general amnesty, to deprive the 
Duke of York of all share in the government, to recall Monmouth 
from banishment, to break with Lewis, and to form a close union 
with Holland on the principles of the Triple Alliance. The Duke of 
York, on the other hand, dreaded the meeting of a Parliament, regard- 
ed the vanquished Whigs with undiminished hatred, still flattered 
himself that the design formed fourteen years before at Dover might 
be accomplished, daily represented to his brother the impropriety of 
suffering one who was at heart a Republican to hold the Privy Seal, 
and strongly recommended Rochester for the great place of Lord 
Treasurer. 

While the two factions were struggling, Godolphin, cautious, silent, 
and laborious, observed a neutrality between them. Sunderland, 
with his usual restless perfidy, intrigued against them both. He: 
had been turned out of office in disgrace for having voted in favour 
of the Exclusion Bill, but had made his peace by employing the good 
offices of the Duchess of Portsmouth and by cringing to the Duke of 
York, and was once more Secretary of State. ; 

Nor was Lewis negligent or inactive. Everything at that moment 


a HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 177 
if i 

favoured his designs. He had nothing to apprehend from the Ger- 
‘man empire, which was then contending against the Turks on the 
‘Danube. Holland could not, unsupported, venture to oppose him. 
He was therefore at liberty to indulge his ambition and insolence 
without restraint. He seized Strasburg, Courtray, Luxemburg. He 
exacted from the republic of Genoa the most humiliating submissions, 
The power of France at that time reached a higher point than it ever 
before or ever after attained, during the ten centuries which sepa- 
rated the reign of Charlemagne from the reign of Napoleon. It was 
‘not easy to say where her acquisitions would stop, if only England 
could be kept in astate of vassalage. The first object of the court of 
Versailles was therefore to prevent the calling of a Parliament and 
the reconciliation of English parties. For this end bribes, promises, 
and menaces were unsparingly employed. Charles was sometimes 
allured by the hope of a subsidy, and sometimes frightened by being 
told that, if he convoked the Houses, the secret articles of the treaty 
of Dover should be published. Several Privy Councillors were 
bought; and attempts were made to buy Halifax, but in vain. When 
he had been found incorruptible, all the art and influence of the 
French embassy were employed to drive him from office: but his 
polished wit and his various accomplishments had made him so 
agreeable to his master, that the design failed.* 

Halifax was not content with standing on the defensive. He open- 
ly accused Rochester of malversation. An inquiry took place. It 
appeared that forty thousand pounds had been lost to the public by 
the mismanagement of the First Lord of the Treasury. In conse- 
quence of this discovery he was not only forced to relinquish his hopes 
of the white staff, but was removed from the direction of the finances 
to the more dignified but less lucrative and important post of Lord 
President. ‘‘I have seen people kicked down stairs,” said Halifax; 
“but my Lord Rochester is the first person that I ever saw kicked 
up stairs.” Godolphin, now a peer, became First Commissioner of 
the Treasury. 

_ Still, however, the contest continued. The event depended wholly 
on the will of Charles; and Charles could not come toa decision. In 
his perplexity he promised everything to everybody. He would 
stand by France: he would break with France: he would never meet 
‘another Parliament: he would order writs for a Parliament to be 


- 


_* Lord Preston, who wasenvoy at Paris, wrote thence to Halifax as follows: 
“Tfind that your lordship lies still under the same misfortune of being no fa- 
-yourite to this court; and Monsieur Barillon dare not do you the honour to shine 
‘upon you, since his master frowneth. They know very well your lordship’s 
qualifications, which make them fear and consequently hate you; and be assur- 
ed, my lord,if all their strength can send youto Rufford, it shall be employed 
forthatend. Two things, I hear, they particularly object against you, your se- 
-erecy, and your being incapable of being corrupted. Against these two things 
I know they havedeclared.” The date of the letter is October 5, N, 5, 1683, 


178 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


issued without delay. He assured the Duke of York that Halifax 
should be dismissed from office, and Halifax that the Duke should 
be sent to Scotland. In public he affected implacable resentment 
against Monmouth, and in private conveyed to Monmouth assurances 
of unalterable affection. How long, if the King’s life had been pro- 
tracted, his hesitation would have lasted, and what would have been 
his resolve, can only be conjectured. Early in the year 1685, while 
hostile parties were anxiously awaiting his determination, he died, 
and anew scene opened. In a few months the excesses of the gov- 
ernment obliterated the impression which had been made on the 
public mind by the excesses of the opposition. The violent reaction 
which had laid the Whig party prostrate was followed by a still more 
violent reaction in the opposite direction; and signs not to be mista- 
ken indicated that the great conflict between the prerogatives of the 
Crown and the privileges of the Parliament, was about to be brought 
to a final issue. 


CHAPTER III. 


I INTEND, in this chapter, to give a description of the state in which 
England was at the time when the crown passed from Charles the 
Second to his brother. Such a description, composed from scanty 
and dispersed materials, must necessarily be very imperfect. Yet it 
may perhaps correct some false notions which would make the oan 
sequent narrative unintelligible or uninstructive. 

If we would study with profit the history of our ancestors, we 
must be constantly on our guard against that delusion which the 
well known names of families, places, and offices naturally produce, 
and must never forget that the country of which we read was a very 
different country from that in which we live. In every experimental 
science there is a tendency towards perfection. In every human 
being there is a wish to ameliorate his own condition. These two 
principles have often sufficed, even when counteracted by great pub- 
lic calamities and by bad institutions, to carry civilisation Tpit 
forward. No ordinary misfortune, no ordinary misgovernment, will 
do so much to make a nation wretched, as the constant progress of 
physical knowledge and the constant effort of every man to better 
himself will do to make a nation prosperous. It has often been 
found that profuse expenditure, heavy taxation, absurd commercial 
restrictions, corrupt tribunals, disastrous wars, seditions, persecu- 
tions, conflagrations, inundations, have not been able to destroy cap- 
ital so fast as the exertions of private citizens have been able to — 
create it. It can easily be proved that, in our own land, the national 
wealth has, during at least six centuries, been almost uninterruptedly 
increasing; that it was greater under the Tudors than under the 
Plantagenets; that it was greater under the Stuarts than under the 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 179 


Tudors; that, in spite of battles, sieges, and confiscations, it was 
eater on the day of the Restoration than on the day when the 
ong Parliament met; that, in spite of maladministration, of extrav- 

-agance, of public bankruptcy, of two costly and unsuccessful wars, 
of the pestilence and of the fire, it was greater on the day of the death 
of Charles the Second than on the day of his Restoration. This prog- 

‘ress, having continued during many ages, became at length, about 

the middle of the eighteenth century, portentously rapid, and has 

proceeded, during the nineteenth, with accelerated velocity. In con- 
sequence partly of our geographical and partly of our moral position, 
we have, during several generations, been exempt from evils which 
have elsewhere impeded the efforts and destroyed the fruits of in- 
dustry. While every part of the Continent, from Moscow to Lisbon, 
has been the theatre of bloody and devastating wars, no hostile stand- 
‘ard has been seen here but as a trophy. While revolutions have 
taken place all around us, our government has never once been sub- 
verted by violence. During more than a hundred years there has 
been in our island no tumult of sufficient importance to be called an 
insurrection; nor has the law been once borne down either by popu- 
lar fury or by regal tyranny: public credit has been held sacred: the 
administration of justice has been pure: even in times which might 
by Englishmen be justly called evil times, we have enjoyed what 
almost every other nation in the world would have considered as an 
ample measure of civil and religious freedom. Every man has felt 
entire confidence that the state would protect him in the possession 
of what had been earned by his diligence and hoarded by his self- 
denial. Under the benignant influence of peace and liberty, science 
has flourished, and has been applied to practical purposes on a scale 
never before known. The consequence is that a change to which 
the history of the old world furnishes no parallel has taken place in 
our country. Could the England of 1685 be, by some magical pro- 
cess, set before our eyes, we should not know one landscape in a 
hundred or one building in ten thousand. The country gentleman 
would not recognise his own fields. The inhabitant of the town 
would not recognise his own street. Everything has been changed, 
but the great features of nature, and a few massive and durable works 
of human art. We might find out Snowdon and Windermere, the 
Cheddar Cliffs and Beachy Head. We might find out here and there 
a Norman minster, or a castle which witnessed the wars of the 

Roses. . But, with such rare exceptions, everything would be strange 

to us. Many thousands of square miles which are now rich corn 

land and meadow, intersected by green hedgerows, and dotted with 

Villages and pleasant country seats, would appear as moors over- 

‘grown with furze, or fens abandoned to wild ducks. We should see 

“struggling huts built of wood and covered with thatch, where we 
now see manufacturing towns and seaports renowned to the farthest 
ends of the world. The capital itself would shrink to dimensions 


180 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. — “a 

not much exceeding those of its present suburb on the south of the 
Thames. Not less strange to us would be the garb and manners of 
the people, the furniture and the equipages, the interior of the shops 
and dwellings. Such a change in the state of a nation seems to be at 
least as well entitled to the notice of a historian as any change of the 
dynasty or of the ministry.* 

One of the first objects of an inquirer, who wishes to form a cor- 
rect notion of the state of a community at a given time, must be to 
ascertain of how many persons that community then consisted, 
Unfortunately the population of England in 1685, cannot be ascer- 
tained with perfect accuracy. For no great state had then adopted 
the wise course of periodically numbering the people.. All men were 
left to conjecture for themselves; and, as they generally conjectured 
without examining facts, and under the influence of strong passions 
and prejudices, their guesses were often ludicrously absurd. Even 
intelligent Londoners ordinarily talked of London as containing sev- 
eral millions of souls. It was confidently asserted by many that, 
during the thirty-five years which had elapsed between the accession 
of Charles the First and the Restoration, the population of the City 
had increased by two millions.t Even while the ravages of the 
plague and fire were recent, it was the fashion to say that the capital 
still had a million and a half of inhabitants. Some persons, dis- 
gusted by these exaggerations, ran violently into the opposite extreme. 
Thus Isaac Vossius, a man of undoubted parts and learning, strenu- 
ously maintained that there were only two millions of human beings 
in England, Scotland, and Ireland taken together.§ 

We are not, however, left without the means of correcting the wild 
blunders into which some minds were hurried by national vanity 
and others by amorbid love of paradox. There are extant three 
computations which seem to be entitled to peculiar attention. They 
are entirely independent of each other: they proceed on different 
principles; and yet there is little difference in the results. 

One of these computations was made in the year 1696 by Gregory 


* During the interval which has elapsed since this chapter was written, Eng- 
land has continued to advance rapidly in material prosperity. I have left my 
text nearly as it originally stood; but I have added a few notes which may en- 
able the reader to form some notion of the progress which has been made dur- 
ing the last nine years; and, in general, I would desire him to remember that 
there is scarcely a district which is not more populous, or a source of wealth 
which is not more productive, at present than in 1848. (1857.) Stot 

+ Observations on the Bills of Mortality, by Captain John Graunt (Sir William 
Petty), chap. xi. 

t ‘** She doth comprehend 
Full fifteen hundred thousand which do spend 


Their days within.” 
: Great Britain’s Beauty, 1671. 
§ Isaac Vossius, De Magnitudine Urbium Sinarum, 1685. Vossius, as we learn 
from Saint Evremond, talked on this subject oftener and longer than fashion- © 
able circles cared to listen, 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 181 


ee 4 
- King, Lancaster herald, a political arithmetician of great acuteness 
and judgment. The basis of his calculations was the number of 
houses returned in 1690 by the officers who made the last collection 
of the hearth money. The conclusion at which he arrived was that 
the population of England was nearly five millions and a half.* 
About the same time King William the Third was desirous to 
ascertain the comparative strength of the religious sects into which 
the community was divided. An inquiry was instituted; and reports 
were laid before him from all the dioceses of the realm. According 
to these reports the number of his English subjects must have been 
about five million two hundred thousand.+ 
Lastly, in our own days, Mr. Finlaison, an actuary of eminent 
skill, subjected the ancient parochial registers of baptisms, mar- 
riages, and burials, to all the tests which the modern improvements 
in statistical science enabled him to apply. His opinion was, that, 
at the close of the seventeenth century, the population of England 

_ was a little under five million two hundred thousand souls. t 

Of these three estimates, framed without concert by different per- 
sons from different sets of materials, the highest, which is that of 

King, does not exceed the lowest, which is that of Finlaison, by one 

twelfth. We may, therefore, with confidence pronounce that, when 
James the Second reigned, England contained between five million 
and five million five hundred thousand inhabitants. On the very 
highest supposition she then had less than one third of her present 
population, and less than three times the population which is now 

_ collected in her gigantic capital. 

___ The increase of the people has been great in every part of the king- 
~ dom,-but generally much greater in the northern than in the southern 
- shires. In truth a large part of the country beyond Trent was, 
_ down to the eighteenth century, in a state of barbarism. Physical and 
_ moral causes had concurred to prevent civilisation from spreading to 
_ thatregion. The air was inclement; the soil was generally such as 
_ required skilful and industrious cultivation; and there could be little 
_ Skill or industry in a tract which was often the theatre of war, and 
_ which, even when there was a nominal peace, was constantly deso- 
lated by bands of Scottish marauders. Before the union of the two 
_ British crowns, and long after that union, there was as great a differ- 
_ ence between Middlesex and Northumberland as there now is between 


. . 

__* King’s Natural and Political Observations, 1696. This valuable treatise, 
_ which ought to be read as the author wrote it, and not as garbled by Davenant, 
_ will be found in some editions of Chalmers’s Estimate. 

= tT peep le's Appendix to Part II. Book I. The practice of reckoning the 
zt eon y sects was long fashionable. (Gulliver says of the King of Brob- 
_ dignag; ‘‘He laughed at my odd arithmetic, as he was pleased to call it, in 
_ reckoning the numbers of our people by a. computation drawn from the several 
BS S$ among us in religion and politics.” 

___ $ Preface to the Population Returns of 1831, 


182 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


Massachusetts and the settlements of those squatters who, far to the 
west of the Mississippi, administer a rude justice with the rifle and — 
the dagger. In the reign of Charles the Second, the traces left by 

ages of slaughter and pillage were distinctly perceptible, many miles 
south of the Tweed, in the face of the country and in the lawless 
manners of the people. There was still a large class of mosstroopers, 
whose calling was to plunder dwellings and to drive away whole 
herds of cattle. It was found necessary, soon after the Restoration, 
to enact laws of great severity for the prevention of these outrages. 
The magistrates of Northumberland and Cumberland were authorised 
to raise bands of armed men for the defence of property and order; 
and provision was made for meeting the expense of these levies by 
local taxation.* The parishes were required to keep bloodhounds for 
the purpose of hunting the freebooters. Many old men who were living 
in the middle of the eighteenth century could well remember the time 
when those ferocious dogs were common.t+ Yet, even with such auxil- 
iaries, it was often found impossible to track the robbers to their re- 
treats among the hills and morasses. For the geography of that wild 
‘country was very imperfectly known. Even after the accession of 
George the Third, the path over the fells from Borrowdale to Raven- 
glas was still a secret carefully kept by the dalesmen, some of whom 
had probably in their youth escaped from the pursuit of justice by 
that road.{ The seats of the gentry and the larger farmhouses were 
fortified. Oxen were penned at night beneath the overhanging bat- 
tlements of the residence, which was known by the name of the 
Peel. The inmates slept with arms at their sides. Huge stones and 
boiling water were in readiness to crush and scald the plunderer who 
might venture to assail the little garrison. No traveller ventured 
into that country without making his will. The Judges on circuit, 
with the whole body of barristers, attorneys, clerks, and serving men, 
rode on horseback from Newcastle to Carlisle, armed and escorted 
by a strong guard under the command of the Sheriffs. It was neces- 
sary to carry provisions; for the country was a wilderness which af- 
forded no supplies. The spot where the cavalcade halted to dine. 
under an immense oak, is not yet forgotten. The irregular vigour 
with which criminal justice was administered shocked observers 
whose lives had. been passed in more tranquil districts. Juries, ani- 
mated by hatred and by a sense of common danger, convicted house- 
breakers and cattle stealers with the promptitude of a court martial 
in a mutiny; and the convicts were hurried by scores to the gallows.§ 
Within the memory of some whom this generation has seen, the 


* Statutes 14 Car. IT. c. 22; 18 & 19 Car. IT. c. 3; 29 & 30 Car. II. ec. 2. 

+ Nicholson and Bourne, Discource on the Ancient State of the Border, 1777. 

+ Gray’s Journal of a Tour in the Lakes, Oct. 3, 1769. 

§ North’s Life of Guildford; Hutchinson’s History of Cumberland, Parish of 
Brampton, 


hg 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 183 


sportsman who wandered in pursuit of game to the sources of the 
Tyne found the heaths round Keeldar Castle peopled by a race scarce- 
ly less savage than the Indians of California, and heard with surprise 
the half naked women chaunting a wild measure, while the men with 
brandished dirks danced a war dance.* 

Slowly and with difficulty peace was established on the border. In 
the train of peace came industry and all the arts of life. Meanwhile 
it was discovered that the regions north of the Trent possessed in 
their coal beds a source of wealth far more precious than the gold 


-minesof Peru. It was found that, in the neighbourhood of these 


beds, almost every manufacture might be most profitably carried on. 
A constant stream of emigrants began to roll northward. It appeared 
by the returns of 1841 that the ancient archiepiscopal province of 
York contained two-sevenths of the population of England. At the 
time of the Revolution that province was believed to contain only one 
seventh of the population. In Lancashire the number of inhabi- 
tanis appear to have increased ninefold, while in Norfork, Suffolk, 
and Northamptonshire it has hardly doubled. t 

Of the taxation we can speak with more confidence and precision 
than of the population. The revenue of England, when Charles the 
Second died, was small, when compared with the resources which 
she even then possessed, or with the sums which were raised by the 
governments of the neighbouring countries. It had, from the time 
of the Restoration, been almost constantly increasing: yet it was little 
more than three fourths of the revenue of the United Provinces, and 
was hardly one fifth of the revenue of France. 

The most important head of receipt was the excise, which, in the 
last year of the reign of Charles, produced five hundred and eighty- 
five thousand pounds, clear of all deductions. The net proceeds of 
the customs amounted in the same year to five hundred and thirty 
thousand pounds. These burdens did not lie very heavy on the na- 
tion. The tax on chimneys, though less productive, call forth far 
louder murmurs. The discontent excited by direct imposts is, indeed, 


almost always out of proportion to the quantity of money which they 


bring into the Exchequer; and the tax on chimneys was, even among 
directs imposts, peculiarly odious: for it could be levied only by 
means of domiciliary visits; and of such visits the English have al- 
Ways been impatient to a degree which the people of other countries 
can but faintly conceive. The poorer householders were frequently 


| * See Sir Walter Scott’s Journal, Oct. 7, 1827, in his Life by Mr. Lockhart. 


t Dalrymple, Appendix to Part II. Book I. The returns of the hearth money 
lead to nearly the same conclusion. The hearths in the province of York were 
not a sixth of the hearths of England. 

oo | do not, of course, pretend to strict accuracy here; but I believe that who- 
ever will take the trouble to compare the last returns of hearth money in the 
reign of William the Third with the census of 1841, will come to a conclusion 
not very different from mine, 


184 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


unable to pay their hearth money to the day. When this happened, 
their furniture was distrained without mercy; for the tax was farm 
ed; and a farmer of taxes is, of all creditors, proverbially the most 
rapacious. The collectors were loudly accused of performing their 
unpopular duty with harshness and insolence. It was said that, as 
soon as they appeared at the threshold of a cottage, the children 
began to wail, and the old ran to hide their earthenware. Nay, the 
single bed of a poor family had sometimes been carried away and 
sold. The net annual receipt from this tax was two hundred thou- 
sand pounds.* ; 

When to the three great sources of income which have been men- 
tioned we add the royal domains, then far more extensive than at pres 
ent, the first fruits and tenths, which had not yet been surrendered to 
the Church, the Duchies of Cornwall and Lancaster, the forfeitures, 
and the fines, we shall find that the whole annual revenue of the crown 
may be fairly estimated at about fourteen hundred thousand pounds. 
Of this revenue part was hereditary; the rest had been granted to 
Charles for life; and he was at liberty to lay out the whole ex 
actly as he thought fit. Whatever he could save by retrenching 
from the expenditure of the public departments was an addition to 
his privy purse. Of the Post Office more will hereafter be said. 
The ‘profits of that establishment had been appropriated by Parlia- 
ment to the Duke of York. 

The King’s revenue was, or rather ought to have been, charged © 
with the payment of about eighty thousand pounds a year, the interest 
of the sum fraudulently detained in the Exchequer by the Cabal. 
While Danby was at the head of the finances, the creditors had re- 


* There are in the Pepysian Library some ballads of that age on the chimney 
money. I will givea specimen or two:— 


‘‘The good old dames, whenever they the chimney man espied, 
Unto their nooks they haste away, their pots and pipkins hide. 
There is not one old dame in ten, and search the nation through, 
But, if you talk of chimney men, will sparea curse or two.” 
Again: 
‘*Like plundering soldiers they’d enter the door, 

And make a distress on the goods of the poor, 

While frighted poor children distractedly cried; 

This nothing abated their insolent pride.’’ 


In the British Museum there are doggrel verses composed on the same subject 
and in the same spirit: 


‘** Or, if through poverty it be not paid 
For cruelty to tear away the single bed, 
On which the poor man rests his weary head, 
At once deprives him of his rest and bread.” 


I take this opportunity, the first which occurs, of acknowledging most grate 
fully the kind and liberal manner in which the Master and Vicemaster of Mag- 
dalene College, Cambridge, gave me access to the valuable collections of Pepys 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 185 


ceived dividends, though not with the strict punctuality of modern 
times: but those who had succeeded him at the treasury had been less 
expert, or less solicitous to maintain public faith. Since the victory 
won by the court over the Whigs, not a farthing had been paid; and 
no redress was granted to the sufferers, till a new dynasty had been 
many yearson the throne. There can be no greater error than to im- 
agine that the device of meeting the exigencies of the state by loans 
was imported into our island by William the Third. What really 
dates from his reign is not the system of borrowing, but the system of 
funding. From a period of immemorable antiquity it had been the 
ractice of every English government to contract debts. What the 
Be eolution introduced was the prac ice of honestly paying them.* 
By plundering the public creditor, it was possible to make an in- 
come of about fourteen hundred thousand pounds, with some occa- 
sional help from Versailles, support the necessary charges of the gov- 
ernment and the wasteful expenditure of the court. For that load 
which pressed most heavily on the finances of the great continental 
states was here scarcely felt. In France, Germany, and the Nether- 
lands, armies, such as Henry the Fourth and Philip the Second had 
“never employed in time of war, were kept up in the midst of peace. 
Bastions and ravelins were everywhere rising, constructed on princi- 
ples unknown to Parma and Spinola. Stores of artillery and ammu- 
nition were accumulated, such as even Richelieu, whom the preceding 
generation had regarded as a worker of prodigies, would have pro- 
nounced fabulous. No man could journey many leagues in those 
countries without hearing the drums of a regiment on march, or 
being challenged by the sentinels on the drawbridge of a fortress. 


In our island, on the contrary, it was possible to live long and to 


travel far without being once reminded, by any martial sight or 
sound, that the defence of nations had become a science and a call- 
ing. The majority of Englishmen who were under twenty-five years 
of age had probably never seen a company of regular soldiers. Of 
the cities which, in the civil war, had valiantly repelled hostile 
armies, scarcely one was now capable of sustaining a siege. The 
gates. stood open night and day. ‘The ditches were dry. The ram- 
parts -had been suffered to fall into decay, or were repaired only that 
the townsfolk might have a pleasant walk on summer evenings. Of 
the old baronial keeps many had been shattered by the cannon of 
Fairfax and Cromwell, and Jay in heaps of ruin, overgrown with 
ivy. Those which remained had lost their martial character, and 
were now rural palaces of the aristocracy. The moats were turned 
into preserves of carp and pike. The mounds were planted with 
fragrant shrubs, through which spiral walks ran up to summer 


* My chief authorities for this financial statement will he found in the Com: 
mons’ Journal, March 1, and March 20, 1684. 


186 | HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


houses adorned with mirrors and paintings.* On the capes of the sea 
coast, and on many inland hills, were still seen tall posts, surmounted 
by barrels. Once those barrels had been filled with pitch. Watch- 
men had been set round them in seasons of danger; and, within a 
few hours after a Spanish sail had been discovered in the Channel, 
or after a thousand Scottish mosstroopers had crossed the Tweed, 
the signal fires were blazing fifty miles off, and whole counties were 
rising in arms. But many years had now elapsed since the beacons 
had been lighted; and they were regarded rather as curious relics of 
ancient manners than as parts of a machinery necessary to the safety 
of the state.+ 

The only army which the law recognised was the militia. That 
force had been remodelled by two Acts of Parliament, passed shortly 
after the Restoration. Every man who possessed five hundred 
pounds a year derived from land, or six thousand pounds of per- 
sonal estate, was bound to provide, equip, and pay, at his own 
charge, one horseman. Every man who had fifty pounds a year de- 
rived from land, or six hundred pounds of personal estate, was 
charged in like manner with one pikeman or musketeer. Smaller 
proprietors were joined together in a kind of society, for which our 
language does not afford a special name, but which an Athenian 
would have called a Synteleia; and each society was required to fur- 
nish, according to its means, a horse soldier or a foot soldier. The 
whole number of cavalry and infantry thus maintained was popu- 
larly estimated at a hundred and thirty thousand men.t 

The King was, by the ancient constitution of the realm, and by the 
recent and solemn acknowledgment of both Houses of Parliament, 
the sole Captain General of this large force. 'The Lords Lieuten- 
ants and their Deputies held the command under him, and ap- 
pointed meetings for drilling and inspection. ‘The time occupied by 
such meetings, however, was not to exceed fourteen days in one 
year. ‘The Justices of the Peace were authorised to inflict severe 
penalties for breaches of discipline. Of the ordinary cost no part 
was paid by the crown: but when the trainbands were called out 
against an enemy, their subsistence became a charge on the general 
revenue of the state, and they were subject to the utmost rigour of 
martial law. 

There were those who looked on the militia with no friendly eye. 
Men who had travelled much on the Continent, who had marvelled 
at the stern precision with which every sentinel moved and spoke in 
the citadels built by Vauban, who had seen the mighty armies which 
poured along all the roads of Germany to chase the Ottoman from 


* See, for example, the picture of the mound at Marlborough, in Stukeley’s 
Itinerarium Curiosum. 

+ Chamberlayne’s State of England, 1684. 

$13 and 14 Car. I. c.3; 15 Car. II. c.4. Chamberlayne’s State of England, 1684. 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 187 


the Gates of Vienna, and who had been dazzled by the well ordered 
pomp of the household troops of Lewis, sneered much at the way in 
which the peasants of Devonshire and Yorkshire marched and 
wheeled, shouldered muskets and ported pikes. The enemies of 
the liberties and religion of England looked with aversion on a force 
which could not, without extreme risk, be employed against those 
liberties and that religion, and missed no opportunity of throwing 
ridicule on the rustic soldiery.* Enlightened patriots, when they 
contrasted these rude levies with the battalions which, in time of 
war, afew hours might bring to the coast of Kent or Sussex, were 
forced to acknowledge that, dangerous as it might be to keep up a 
permanent military establishment, it might be more dangerous still 
to stake the honour and independence. of the country en the result 
of a contest between plowmen officered by Justices of the Peace, and 
veteran warriors led by Marshals of France. In Parliament, how- 
ever, it was necessary to express such opinions with some reserve; 
for the militia was an institution eminently popular. Every reflec- 
_tion thrown on it excited the indignation of both the great parties 
in the state, and especially of that party which was distinguished 
by peculiar zeal for monarchy and for the Anglican Church. The 
array of the counties was commanded almost exclusively by Tory 
noblemen and gentlemen. ‘They were proud of their military rank 
and considered an insult offered to the service to which they belonge 
as offered to themselves. They were also perfectly aware that what- 
ever was said against a militia was said in favour of a standing 
army; and the name of standing army was hateful to them. One 
such army had held dominion in England; and under that dominion 
the King had been murdered, the nobility degraded, the landed gen- 
try plundered, the Church persecuted. There was scarcely a rural 
grandee who could not tell a story of wrongs and insults suffered by 
himself; or by his father, at the hands of the parliamentary soldiers. 
One old Cavalier had seen half his manor house blownup. The heredi- 
tary elms of another had been hewn down. A third could never go 
into his parish church without being reminded by the defaced 
_ scutcheons and headless statues of his ancestry, that Oliver’s redcoats 


* Dryden, in his Cymon and Iphigenia, expressed, with his usual keeness and 
energy, the sentiments which had been fashionable among the sycophants of 
James the Second :— 


“The country rings around with loud alarms, 

And raw in fields the rude militia swarms; 

Mouths without hands, maintained at vast expense, 

In peace a charge, in war a weak defence. 
ay Stout once a month they march, a blustering band, 
And ever, but in time of need, at hand. 
This was the morn when, issuing on the guard, 
Drawn up in rank and file, they stood prepared 
Of seeming arms to make a short essay, 
Then hasten to be drunk, the business of the day.” 


188 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. , a 


had once stabled their horses there. The consequence was that 
those very Royalists, who were most ready to fight for the King 
themselves, were the last persons whom he could venture to ask for 
the means of hiring regular troops: 

Charles, however, had, a few months after his restoration, begun 
to form a small standing army. He felt that, without some better 
protection than that of the trainbands and beefeaters, his palace and 
person would hardly be secure, in the vicinity of a great city swarm- 
ing with warlike Fifth Monarchy men who had just been disbanded. 
He therefore, careless and profuse as he was, contrived to spare from 
his pleasures a sum sufficient to keep up a body of guards. ‘With 
the increase of trade and of public wealth his revenues increased; 
and he was thus enabled, in spite of the occasional murmurs of the 
Commons, to make gradual additions to his regular forces. One 
considerable addition was made a few months before the close of his 
reign. The costly, useless, and pestilential settlement of Tangier 
was abandoned to the barbarians who dwelt around it; and the gar- 
rison, consisting of one regiment of horse and two regiments of foot, 
was brought to England. 

The little army formed by Charles the Second was the germ of 
that great and renowned army which has, in the present century, 
marched triumphant into Madrid and Paris, into Canton and Canda- 
har. The Life Guards, who now form two regiments, were then 
distributed into three troops, each of which consisted of two hundred 
carabineers, exclusive of officers. This corps, to which the safety 
of the King and royal family was confided, had a very peculiar 
character. Even the privates were designated as gentlemen of the 
Guard. Many of them were of good families, and had held com-_ 
missions in the civil war. Their pay was far higher than that of the 
most favoured regiment of our time, and would in that age have 
been thought a respectable provision for the younger son of a country 
squire. Their fine horses, their rich housings, their cuirasses, and 
their buff coats adorned with ribands, velvet, and gold lace, made 
a splendid appearance in St. James’s Park. A small body of grena- 
dier dragoons, who came from a lower class and received lower pay, 
was attached to each troop. Another body of household cavalry 
distinguished by blue coats and cloaks, and still called the Blues, 
was generally quartered in the neighbourhood of the capital. Near 
the capital lay also the corps which is now designated as the first 
regiment of dragoons, but which was then the only regiment of 
dragoons on the English establishment. It had recently been formed 
out of the cavalry which had returned from Tangier. A single 
troop of dragoons, which did not form part of any regiment, was 
stationed near Berwick, for the purpose of keeping the peace among’ 
the mosstroopers of the border. For this species of service the 
dragoon was then thought to be peculiarly qualified. He has since 
become a mere horse soldier. But in the seventeenth century he was 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. . 189 


accurately described by Montecuculi as a foot soldier who used a 
horse only in order to arrive with more speed at the place where mil- 
itary service was to be performed. 

The household infantry consisted of two regiments, which were 
then, as now, called the first regiment of Foot Guards, and the Cold- 
stream Guards. They generally did duty near Whitehall and St. 
James’s Palace. As there were then no barracks, and as, by the 
Petition of Right, it had been declared unlawful to quarter soldiers 
on private families, the redcoats filled all the alehouses of West- 
minster and the Strand. 

There were five other regiments of foot. One of these, called the 
Admiral’s Regiment, was especially destined to service on board of 
the fleet. ‘The remaining four still rank as the first four regiments 
of the line. Two of these represented two brigades which had long 
sustained on the Continent the fame of British valour. The first, 
or Royal regiment, had, under the great Gustavus, borne a conspicu- 
ous part in the deliverance of Germany. The third regiment, dis- 
tinguished by fleshcoloured facings, from which it had derived the 
well known name of the Buffs, had, under Maurice of Nassau, fought 
not less bravely for the deliverance of the Netherlands. Both these 

allant bands had at length, after many vicissitudes, been recalled 
rom foreign service by Charles the Second, and had been placed on 
‘the English establishment. 

The regiments which now rank as the second and fourth of the 
line had, in 1685, just returned from Tangier, bringing with them 
cruel and licentious habits contracted in a long course of warfare 
with the Moors. A few companies of infantry which had not been 
regimented lay in garrison at Tilbury Fort, at Portsmouth, at 
Plymouth, and at some other important stations on or near the 
coast. 

‘Since the beginning of the seventeenth century a great change had 
taken place in the arms of theinfantry. The pike had been gradually 
giving place to the musket; and, at the close of the reign of Charles 
the Second, most of his foot were musketeers. Still, however, there 
Was a large intermixture of pikemen. Each class of troops was oc- 
casionally instructed in the use of the weapon which peculiarly 
belonged to the other class. Every foot soldier had at his side a 
sword for close fight. The musketecr was generally provided with 
a weapon which had, during many years, been gradually coming 
into use, and which the English then called a dagger, but which, 
from the time of William the Third, has been known among us by 
the French name of bayonet. The bayonet seems not to have been 
then so formidable an instrument of destruction as it has since be- 
come; for it was inserted in the muzzle of the gun; and in action 
much time was lost while the soldier unfixed his bayonet in order to 
fire, and fixed it again in order to charge. The dragoon, when dis- 
mounted, fought as a musketeer. 

M. E. i.—7 


190 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


The regular army which was kept up in England at the beginning 
of the year 1685 consisted, all ranks included, of about seven thou- 
sand foot, and about seventeen hundred cavalry and dragoons. The 
whole charge amounted to about two hundred and ninety thottsand 
pounds a year, less than a tenth parth of what the military establish- 
ment of France then cost in time of peace. The daily pay of a 
private in the Life Guards was four shillings, in the Blues two 
shillings and sixpence, in the Dragoons eighteen pence, in the Foot 
Guards tenpence, and in the line eightpence. The discipline was 
lax, and indeed could not be otherwise. The common law of Eng- 
land knew nothing of courts martial, and made no distinction, in 
time of peace, between a soldier and any other subject; nor could 
the government then venture to ask even the most loyal Parliament 
for a Mutiny Bill. A soldier, therefore, by knocking down his colo- 
nel, incurred only the ordinary penalties of assault and battery, and 
by refusing to obey orders, by sleeping on guard, or by deserting his 
colours, incurred no legal penalty at all. Military punishments were 
doubtless inflicted during the reign of Charles the Second; but they 
were inflicted very sparingly, and im such a manner as not to attract 
Pepe notice, or to produce an appeal to the courts of Westminster 

all. 

Such an army as has been described was not very likely to enslave 
five millions of Englishmen. It would indeed have been unable to 
suppress an insurrection in London, if the trainbands of the City had 
joined the insurgents. Nor could the King expect that, if a rising 
took place in England, he would obtain effectual help from his other 
dominions. For, though both Scotland and Ireland supported separate 
military establishments, those establishments were not more than suf- 
ficient to keep down the Puritan malecontents of the former kingdom 
and the Popish malecontents of the latter. The government had, 
however, an important military resource which must not be left un- 
noticed. There were in the pay of the United Provinces six fine 
regiments, of which three had been raised in England and three in 
Scotland. Their native prince had reserved to himself the power of 
recalling them, if he needed their help against a foreign or domestic 
enemy. In the meantime they were maintained without any charge 
to him, and were kept under an excellent discipline, to which he couid 
not have ventured to subject them.* 

If the jealousy of the Parliament and of the nation made it impos- 
sible for the King to maintain a formidable standing army, no similar 
impediment prevented him from making England the first of maritime 


* Most of the materials which I have used for this account of the regular army 
will be found in the Historical Records of Regiments, published by command of 
King William the Fourth, and under the direction of the Adjutant General. 
See also Chamberlayne’s State of England, 1684; Abridgment of the English 
Military Discipline, printed by especial command, 1685; Exercise of Foot, by 
their Majesties’ command, 1690. 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 191 


powers. Both Whigs and Tories were ready to applaud every step 
tending to increase the efficiency of that force which, while it was the 
best protection of the island against foreign enemies, was powerless 
against civil liberty. All the greatest exploits achieved within the 
memory of that generation by English soldiers had been achieved in 
war against English princes. The victories of our sailors had been 
won over foreign foes, and had averted havoc and rapine from our 
own soil. By at least half the nation the battle of Naseby was remem- 
bered with horror, and the battle of Dunbar with pride chequered 
by many painful feelings: but the defeat of the Armada, and the en- 
counters of Blake with the Hollanders and Spaniards were recollected 
with unmixed exultation by all parties, Ever since the Restoration, the 
Commons, even when most discontented and most parsimonious, had 
always been bountiful to profusion where the interest of the navy was 
concerned. It had been represented to them, while Danby was min- 
ister, that many of the vessels in the royal fleet were old and unfit for 
sea; and, although the House was, at that time, in no giving mood, 
an aid of near six hundred thousand pounds had been granted for the 
building of thirty new men of war. 

But the liberality of the nation had been made fruitless by the vices 
of the government. The list of the King’s ships, it is true, looked 


well. There were nine first rates, fourteen second rates, thirty-nine 


' third rates, and many smaller vessels. The first rates, indeed, were 


less than the third rates of our time; and the third rates would not 
now rank as very large frigates. This force, however, if it had been 
efficient, would in those days have been regarded by the greatest po- 
tentate as formidable. But itexistcd only on paper. When the reign 
of Charles terminated, his navy had sunk into degradation and decay, 
such as would be almost incredible if it were not certified to us by 
the independent and concurrent evidence of witnesses whose author- 
ity is beyond exception. Pepys, the ablest man in the English Ad- 
miralty, drew up, in the year 1684, a memorial on the state of his de- 
partment, for the information of Charles. A few months later Bonre- 


paux, the ablest man in the French Admiralty, having visited England 


for the especial purpose of ascertaining her maritime strength, laid 
the result of his inquiries before Lewis. The two reports are to the 
same effect. Bonrepaux declared that he found everything in disor- 
der and in miserable condition, that the superiority of the French 
marine was acknowledged with shame and envy at Whitehall, and 
that the state of our shipping and dockyards was of itself a sufficient 
guarantee that we should not meddle in the disputes of Europe.* 


* IL refer to a despatch of Bonrepaux to Seignelay,dated Feb. 38. 1686. It was 
transcribed for Mr. Fox from the French archives, during the peace of Amiens, 


_ and, with the other materials brought together by that great man, was entrust- 


ed to me by the kindness of the late Lady Holland, and of the present Lord 
Holland. I ought to add that, even in the midst of the troubles which have 


~~ a 


192 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


Pepys informed his master that the naval administration was a prodi- 
dy of wastefulness, corruption, ignorance, and indolence, that no es- 
timate could be trusted, that no contract was performed, that no 
check was enforced. The vessels which the recent liberality of Par- 
liament had enabled the government to build, and which had never 
been out of harbour, had been made of such wretched timber that 
they were more unfit to go to sea than the old hulls which had been 
battered thirty years before by Dutch and Spanish broadsides. Some 
of the new men of war, indeed, were so rotten that, unless speedily 
rapaired, they would go down at their moorings. The sailors were 
paid with so little punctuality that they were glad to find some usurer — 
who would purchase their tickets at forty per cent. discount. ‘The 
commanders who had not powerful friends at court were even worse 
treated. Some officers, to whom large arrears were due, after vainly 
importuning the government during many years, had died for want 
of a morsel of bread. 

Most of the ships which were afloat were commanded by men who 
had not been bred to the sea. This, it is true, was not an abuse in- 
troduced by the government of Charles. No state, ancient or mod- 
ern, had, before that time, made a complete separation between the 
naval and military services. In the great civilised nations of antiqui- 
ty, Cimon and Lysander, Pompey and Agrippa, had fought battles 
by sea as well as by land. Nor had the impulse which nauti- 
cal science received at the close of the fifteenth century produced any 
new division of labour. At Flodden the right wing of the victorious 
army was led by the Admiral of England. At Jarnac and Moncon- 
tour the Huguenot ranks were marshalled by the Admiral of France. 
Neither John of Austria, the conqueror of Lepanto, nor Lord How- 
ard of Effingham, to whose direction the marine of England was con- 
fined when the Spanish invaders were approaching our shores, had re- 
ceived the education of a sailor. Raleigh, highly celebrated as a naval 
commander, had served during many years as a soldier in France, 
the Netherlands, and Ireland. Blake had distinguished himself by 
his skilful and valiant defence of an inland town before he humbled 
the pride of Holland and of Castile on the ocean. Since the Restora- 
tion the same system had been followed. Great fleets had been en- 
trusted to the direction of Rupert and Monk; Rupert, who was re- 
nowned chiefly as a hot and daring cavalry officer, and Monk, who, 
when he wished his ship to change her course, moved the mirth of 
his crew by calling out, ‘‘ Wheel to the left!” 

But about this time wise men began to perceive that the rapid im- 
provement, both of the art of war and of the art of navigation, made 
it necessary to draw a line between two professions which had hither- 


lately agitated Paris, I found no difficulty in obtaining, from the liberality of 
ee pe seri pes there, extracts supplying some chasms in Mr. Fox’s collec- 
on. 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 193 


_ to been confounded. Hither the command of a regiment or the com- 


mand of a ship was now a matter quite sufticient to occupy the atten- 


tion of asingle mind. In the year 1672 the French government de- 
termined to educate young men of good family from a very early age 
especially for the sea service. But the English government, instead 
of following this excellent example, not only continued to distribute 
high naval commands among landsmen, but selected for such com- 
mands landsmen who, even on land, could not safely have been put 
in any important trust. Any lad of noble birth, any dissolute courtier 
for whom one of the King’s mistresses would speak a word, might 
hope that a ship of the line, and with it the honour of the country and 
the lives of hundreds of brave men, wonld be committed to his care. 
It mattered not that he had never in his life taken a voyage except on 
the Thames, that he could not keep his feet in a breeze, that he did 
not know the difference between latitude and longitude. No previous 
training was thought necessary; or, at most, he was sent to make a 
short trip in a man of war, where he was subjected to no discipline, 
where he was treated with marked respect, and where he lived in a 
round of revels and amusements. If, in the intervals of feasting, 
_ drinking, and gambling, he succeeded in learning the meaning of a 
_ few technical phrases and the names of the points of the compass, he 
was thought fully qualified to take charge of a three-decker. Thisis 
no imaginary description. In 1666, John Sheffield, Earl of Mulgrave, 
at seventeen years of age, volunteered to serve at sea against the Dutch. 
He passed six weeks on board, diverting himself, as well as he could, 
in the society of some young libertines of rank, and then returned 
home to take command of a troop of horse. After this he was never 
on the water till the year 1672, when he again joined the fleet, and 
was almost immediately appointed Captain of a ship of eighty-four 
guns, reputed the finest in the navy. He was then twenty-three years 
old, and had not, in the whole course of his life, been three months 
afloat. As soon as he came back from sea he was made Colonel of a 
regiment of foot. This isa specimen of the manner in which naval 
commands of the highest importance were then given; and a very 
favourable specimen; for Mulgrave, though he wanted experience, 
wanted neither parts nor courage. Others were promoted in the same 
way who not only were not good officers, but who were intellectually 
and morally incapable of ever becoming good officers, and whose 
only recommendation was that they had been ruined by folly and 
vice. The chief bait which allured these men into the service was 
the profit of conveying bullion and other valuable commodities from 
port to port; for both the Atlantic and the Mediterranean were then 
so much infested by pirates from Barbary that merchants were not 
willing to trust precious cargoes to any custody but that of a man of 
war. A Captain might thus clear several thousands of pounds by a 
short voyage; and for this lucrative business he too often neglected 
the interests of his country and the honour of his flag, made mean 


‘ 
tf 
a8 
af 


19-4 . HISTORY OF ENGLAND. uit 


submissions to foreign powers, disobeyed the most direct injunetions 
of his superiors, lay in port when he was ordered to chase a Sallee ro- 
ver, or ranwith dollars to Leghorn when his instructions directed him to 
repair to Lisbon. And all this he did with impunity. The same interest 
which had placed him ina post for which he was unfit maintained 
him there. No Admiral, bearded by these corrupt and dissolute 
minions of the palace, dared to do more than mutter something about 
a court martial. If any officer showed a higher sense of duty than 
his fellows, he soon found that he lost money without acquiring 
honour. One Captain, who, by strictly obeying the orders of The 
Admiralty, missed a cargo which would have been worth four thou- 
sand pounds to him, was told by Charles, with ignoble levity, that 
he was a great fool for his pains, 

The discipline of the navy was of a piece throughout. As the 
courtly Captain despised the Admiralty, he was in turn despised by 
his crew. It could not be concealed that he was inferior in seaman- 
ship to every foremast man on board. It was idle to expect that old 
sailors, familiar with the hurricances of the tropics and with the ice- 
bergs of the Arctic Circle, would pay prompt and respectful obedience 
to a chief who knew no more of winds and waves than could be 
learned in a gilded barge between Whitehall stairs and Hampton 
Court. To trust such a novice with a working of a ship was evident- 
ly impossible. The direction of the navigation was therefore taken 
from the Captain and given to the Master; but this partition of au- 
thority produced innumerable inconveniences. The line of demarka- 
tion was not, and perhaps could not be, drawn with precision. There 
was therefore constant wrangling. The Captain, confident in propor- 
tion to his ignorance, treated the Master with lordly contempt. The 
Master, well aware of the danger of disobliging the powerful, too of- 
ten, after a struggle, yielded against his better judgment; and it was 
well if the loss of ship and crew was not the consequence. In gen- 
eral the least mischievous of the aristocratical Captains were those 
who completely abandoned to others the direction of the vessels, and 
thought only of making money and spending it. The way in which 
these men lived was so ostentacious and voluptuous that, greedy as 
they were of gain, they seldom became rich. They dressed as if for 
a gala at Versailles, ate off plate, drank the richest wines, and kept 
harems on board, while hunger and scurvy raged among the crews, 
and while corpses were daily flung out of the portholes. 

Such was the ordinary character of those who were then called 
gentlemen Captains. Mingled with them were to be found, happily 
for our country, naval commanders of avery different description, 
men whose whole life had been passed on the deep, and who had 
worked and fought their way from the lowest offices of the forecastle 
to rank and distinction. One of the most eminent of these officers 
was Sir Christopher Mings, who entered the service as a cabin boy, 
who fell fighting bravely against the Dutch, and whom his crew, 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 195 


- weeping and vowing vengeance, carried to the grave. From him 
sprang, by a singular kind of descent, a line of valiant and expert 
sailors. His cabin boy was Sir John Narborough; and the cabin boy 
of Sir John Narborough was Sir Cloudeslev Shovel. To the strong 
natural sense and dauntless courage of this class of men England owes 
a debt never to be forgotten. It was by such resolute hearts that, in 
spite of much maladministration, and in spite of the blunders and 
treasons of more courtly admirals, our coasts were protected and the 
reputation of our flag upheld during many gloomy and perilous years, 
But to a landsman these tarpaulins, as they were called, seemed a 
strange and half savage race. All their knowledge was professional; 
and their professional knowledge was practical rather than scientific, 
Off their own element they were as simple as children. Their deport- 
ment wasuncouth. There was roughness in their very good nature; 
and their talk, where it was not made up of nautical phrases, was too 
commonly made up of oaths and curses. Such were the chiefs in 
whose rude school were formed those sturdy warriors from whom 
Smollett, in the next age, drew Lieutenant Bowling and Commodore 
Trunnion. But it does not appear that there wasin theservice of any 
of the Stuarts a single naval officer such as, according to the notions 
of our times, a naval officer ought to be, that is to say, a man versed 
in the theory and practice of his calling, and steeled against all the 
dangers of battle and tempest, yet of cultivated mind and _ polished 
manners. There were gentlemen and there were seamen in the navy 
of Charles the Second. But the seamen were not gentlemen; and the 
gentlemen were not seamen. The English navy at that time might, 
according to the most exact estimates which have come down to us, 
have been kept in an efficient state for three hundred and eighty thou- 
sand pounds a year. Four hundred thousand pounds a year was the 
sum actually expended, but expended, as we have seen, to very little 
purpose. ‘The cost of the French marine was nearly the same; the 
cost of the Dutch marine considerably more.* 

The charge of the English ordnance in the seventeenth century was, 
as compared with other military and naval charges, much smaller 
than at present. At most of the garrisons there were gunners; and 
here and there, at an important post, an engineer was to be found. 
But there was no regiment of artillery, no brigade of sappers and 
miners, no college in which young soldiers could learn the scientific 


* My information respecting the condition of the navy, at this time. is chiefly 
derived from Pepys. His report, presented to Charles the Second in May. 1634, 
has never, I believe, been printed. The manuscript is at Magdalene College, 
Cambridge. At Magdalene College is also a valuable manuscript containing a 
detailed account of the maritime establishments of the countryin December, 
1684. Pepys’s ‘‘ Memoirs relating to the State of the Royal Navy for Ten Years, 
determined December, 1688,’ and his diary and correspondence during his mis- 
Sion to Tangier, arein print. Ihave made large use of them. See also Shef- 
field’s Memoirs, Teonge’s Diary, Aubrey’s Life of Monk. the Life of Sir Cloudes- 
ley Shovel, 1708, Commons’ Journals, March 1 and March 20, 1688-9. 


196 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


part of the art of war. The difficulty of moving field pieces was ex- 
treme. When, a few years later, William marched from Devonshire 
to London, the apparatus which he brought with him, though such as 
had long been in constant use on the Continent, and such as would 
now be regarded at Woolwich as rude and cumbrous, excited in our 
ancestors an admiration resembling that which the Indians of America 
felt for the Castilian harquebusses. The stock of gunpowder kept in 
the English forts and arsenals was boastfully mentioned by patriotic 
writers as something which might well impress neighbouring nations 
with awe, It amounted to fourteen or fifteen thousand barrels, about 
a twelfth of the quantity which it is now thought necessary to have 
in store. The expenditure under the head of ordnance was on an 
average a little above sixty thousand pounds a year.* 

The whole effective charge of the army, navy, and ordnance, was 
about seven hundred and fifty thousand pounds. The non-effective 
charge, which is now a heavy part of our public burdens, can hardly 
be said to have existed. A very small number of naval officers, 
who were not employed in the public service, drew half pay. No 
Lieutenant was on the list, nor any Captain who had not commanded 
a ship of the first or second rate. As the country then possessed only 
seventeen ships of the first and second rate that had cver been at sea, 
and as a large proportion of the persons who had commanded such 
ships had good posts on shores, the expenditure under this head must 
have been small indeed.+ In the army, half pay was given merely as 
a special and temporary allowance to a small number of officers be- 
longing to two regiments, Which were peculiarly situated.{ Green- 
wich Hospital had not been founded. Chelsea Hospital was build- 
ing: but the cost of that institution was defrayed partly by a deduc- 
tion from the pay of the troops, and partly by private subscription. 
The King promised to contribute only twenty thousand pounds for 
architectural expenses, and five thousand a year for the maintenance 
of the invalids.§ It was no part of the plan that there should be out- 
pensioners. The whole non-effective charge, military and naval, can 
scarcely have exceeded ten thousand pounds a year. It now exceeds 
ten thousand pounds a day. 

Of the expense of civil government only a small portion was de- 
frayed by thecrown. The great majority of the functionaries whose 
business was to administer justice and preserve order either gave 
their services to the public gratuitously, or were remunerated in a 


ee se we ee 


* Chamberlayne’s State of England, 1684; Commons’ Journals, March 1 and 
March 20, 1688-9, In 1833, it was determined, after full enquiry, that a hundred 
and seventy thousand barrels of gunpowder should constantly be kept in store. 

+ It appears from the records of the Admiralty, that Flag officers were allowed 
half pay in 1668 Captains of first and second rates not till 1674. 

¢{ Warrant in the War Office Records, dated March 26, 1678. 

§ Evelyn’s Diary, Jan. 27, 1682, I have seen aprivy seal, dated May 17, 1683, 
which confirms Evelyn’s testimony. : 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 197 


manner which caused no drain on the revenue of the state. The 


sheriffs, mayors, and aldermen of the towns, the country gentlemen 
who were in the commission of the peace, the headboroughs, banliffs, 
and petty constables, cost the King nothing. The superior courts of 
law were chiefly supported by fees 

_ Our relations with foreign courts had been put on the most econom- 
ical footing The only diplomatic agent who had the title of Ambas 
sador resided at Constantinople, and was partly supported by the 
Turkish Company. Even at the court of Versailles England had only 
an Envoy, and she had not even an Envoy at the Spanish, Swedish, 
and Danish courts The whole expénse under this head cannot, in 
the last year of the reign of Charles the Second, have much exceeded 
twenty thousand pounds.* 

In this frugality there was nothing laudable. Charles was, as usual, 
niggardly in the wrong place, and munificent in the wrong place, 
The public service was starved that courtiers might be pampered. 
The expense of the navy, of the ordnance, of pensions to needy old 
officers, of missions to foreign courts, must seem small indeed to the 
present generation. But the personal favourites of the sovereign, his 
ministers, and the creatures of those ministers, were gorged with public 
money ‘Their salaries and pensions, when compared with the incomes 
of the nobility, the gentry, the commerical and professional men of that 
age, will appear enormous. ‘The greatest estates in the kingdom then 
very little exceeded twenty thousand a year. The Duke of Ormond had 
twenty-two thousand a year.t The Duke of Buckingham, before his 
ence had impaired his great property, had nineteen thousand 
six hundred a year.{ George Monk, Duke of Albemarle, who had been 
rewarded for his eminent services with immense grants of crown 
land, and who had been notorious both for covetousness and for par- 
simony, left fifteen thousand a year of real estate, and sixty thousand 
pounds in money which probably yielded seven per cent.§ These 
three Dukes were supposed to be three of the very richest subjects in 
England. The Archbishop of Canterbury can hardly have had five 
thousand a year.|| The average income of a temporal peer was esti- 


— 


* James the Second sent Envoys to Spain, Sweden, and Denmark; yet in his 
reign the diplomatic expenditure was little more than 30,0001.a year. See the 
Commons’ Journals, March 20, 1688-9; Chamberlayne’s State of England, 1684, 


4. 

+t Carte’s Life of Ormond. 

t Pepys’s Diary, Feb. 14, 1663. 

§ See the Report of the Bath and Montague case, which was decided by 
Lord Keeper Somers, in December, 1693. 

| During three quarters of a year, beginning from Christmas, 1689, the reve- 
Ruesof the see of Canterbury were received by an officer appointed by the 
crown. That officer’s accounts are now in the British Museum. (Lansdowne 
MSS. 885.) The gross revenue for the three quarters was not quite four thousand 
pounds; and the difference between the gross and the net revenue was evidently 
something considerable. 


(oe 
wv 


198 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


mated, by the best informed persons, at about three thousand a year, 
the average income of a baronet at nine hundred a year, the average 
income of a member of the House of Commons at less than eight 
hundred a year.* A thousand a year was thought a large revenue 
for a barrister Two thousand a year was hardly to be made in the 
Court of King’s Bench, except by the crown lawyers.+ It is evident, 
therefore, that an official man would have been well paid if he had 
received a fourth or fifth part of what would now be an adequate 
stipend. In fact, however, the stipends of the higher class of official 
men were as large as at*present, and not seldom larger. ‘The Lord 
Treasurer, for example, had eight thousand a year, and, when the 
Treasury was in commission, the junior Lords had sixteen hundred a 
year each. The Paymaster of the Forces had a poundage, amount- 
ing, In time of peace, to about five thousand a year, on all the money 
which passed through his hands. 'The Groom of the Stole had five 
thousand a year, the Commissioners of the Customs twelve hundred 
a year each, the Lords of the Bedchamber a thousand a year each. 
The regular salary, however, was the smallest part ofthe gains of an 
official man at that age. From the noblemen who held the white 
staff and the great seal, down to the humblest tidewaiter and gauger, 
what would now be called gross corruption was practised without 
disguise and without reproach. ‘Titles, places, commissions, pardons, 
were daily sold in market overt by the great dignitaries of the realm, 
and every clerk in every department imitated, to the best of his power, 
the evil example. 

During the last century no prime minister, however powerful, has 
become rich in office; and several prime ministers have impaired 
their private fortune in sustaining their public character. In the 
seventeenth century, a statesman who was at the head of affairs might 
easily, and without giving scandal, accumulate in no long time an 
estate amply sufficient to support a dukedom. It is probable that 
the income of the prime minister, during his tenure of power, far ex- 
ceeded that of any other subject. The place of Lord Lieutenant of 
Ireland was popularly reported to be worth forty thousand pounds a 
year § The gains of the Chancellor Clarendon, of Arlington, of 
Lauderdale, and of Danby, were certainly enormous. The sumptu- 
ous palace to which the populace of London gave the name of Dun- 
kirk House, the stately pavilions, the fishponds, the deer park and 
the orangery of Euston, the more than Italian luxury of Ham, with 
its busts, fountains, and aviaries, were among the many signs which 


* King’s Natural and Political Conclusions. Davenant on the Balance of 
Trade. Sir W. Temple says, ‘‘ The revenues of a House of Commons have sel- 
dom exceeded four hundred thousand pounds.’’ Memoirs, Third Part. 

+ Langton’s Conversations wita Chief Justice Hale, 1672. 

t+ Commons’ Journals, April 27, 1689; Chamberlayne’s State of England, 1684 

§ See the Travels of the Grand Duke Cosmo. 


> 


4 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 199 


indicated what was the shortest road to boundless wealth. This is 


the true explanation of the unscrupulous violence with which the 
statesmen of that day struggled for office, of the tenacity with which 
in spite of vexations, humiliations and dangers, they clung to it, and 


_ of the scandalous compliances to which they stooped in order to retain 


it. Even in our own age, formidable as is the power of opinion, and 


high as is the standard of integrity, there would be great risk of a 
lamentable change in the character of our public men, if the place of 
First Lord of the Treasury or Secretary of State were worth a hun- 
dred thousand pounds a year. Happy for our country the emolu- 
ments of the highest class of functionaries have not only not grown 


“in proportion to the general growth of our opulence, but have posi- 


tively diminished. 

- The fact that the sum raised in England by taxation has, in a time 
not exceeding two long lives, been multiplied forty-fold, is strange, 
and may at first sight seem appalling. But those who are alarmed 
by the increase of the public burdens may perhaps be reassured when 
they have considered the increase of the public resources. In the 
year 1685, the value of the produce of the soil far exceeded the value 
of all the other fruits of human industry. Yet agriculture was in 


what would now be considered as a very rude and imperfect state, 


> 


The arable land and pasture land were not supposed by the best po- 
jitical arithmeticians of that age to amount to much more than half 
the area of the kingdom.* The remainder was believed to consist of 
moor, forest, and fen. These computations are strongly confirmed 
by the road books and maps of the seventeenth century. From those 
books and maps it is clear that many routes which now pass through 
an endless succession of orchards, cornfields, hayfields, and beanfields, 
then ran through nothing but heath, swamp, and warren.{ In the 
drawings of English landscapes made in that age for the Grand Duke 


Cosmo, scarce a hedgerow is to be seen, and numerous tracts, now 


rich with cultivation, appear as bare as Salisbury Plain.t At En- 
field, hardly out of sight of the smoke of the capital, was a region of 


_ five and twenty miles in circumference, which contained only three 


houses and scarcely any enclosed fields. Deer, as free as in an 


* King’s Natural and Political Conclusions. Davenant on the Balance of 


e. 

_t See the Itinerarium Anglisz, 1675, by John Ogilby, Cosmographer Royal. He 
describes great part of the land as wood, fen, heath on both sides, marsh on 
both sides. In some of his maps the roads through enclosed country are 
marked by lines, and the roads through unenclosed country by dots. The pro- 
portion of unenclosed country, which, if cultivated, must have been wretchedly 
cultivated, seems to have been very great. From Abingdon to Gloucester, for 
example, a distance of forty or fifty miles, there was not asingle enclosure, and 


_&Carcely one enclosure between Biggleswade and Lincoln. 


t Large copies of these highly interesting drawings are in the noble collec- 


_ tion bequeathed by Mr. Grenville to the British Museum, See particularly the 
drawings of Exeter and Northampton. 


200 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


American forest, wandered there by thousands.* It is to be remarked, 
that wild animals of large size were then far more numerous than at 
present. The last wild boars, indeed, which had been preserved for 
the royal diversion, and had been allowed to ravage the cultivated 
land with their tusks, had been slaughtered by the exasperated rus- 
tics during the license of the civil war. The last wolf that has reamed 
our island had been slain in Scotland a short time before the close of 
the reign of Charles the Second. But many breeds, now extinct, or 
rare, both of quadrupeds and birds, were still common. The fox, 
whose life is now, in many counties, held almost as sacred as that of 
a human being, was then considered as a mere nuisance. Oliver 
Saint John told the Long Parliament that Strafford was to be regard- 
ed, not as a stag or a hare, to whom some law was to be given, but as 
a fox, who was to be snared by any means, and knocked on the head 
without pity. This illustration would be by no means a happy one, 
if addressed to country gentlemen of our time: but in Saint John’s days 
there were not seldom great massacres of foxes to which the peasant- 
ry thronged with all the dogs that could be mustered: traps were se<~ 
nets were spread: no quarter was given; and to shoot a female with 
cub was considered as a feat which merited the warmest gratitude 
of the neighbourhood, The red deer were then as common in Glou- 
cestershire and Hampshire, as they now are among the Grampian 
Hills. On one occasion Queen Anne, travelling to Portsmouth, saw 
a herd of no less than five hundred. The wild bull with his white 
mane was still to be found wandering in a few of the southern 
forests. The badger made his dark and tortuous hole on the side of 
every hill where the copsewood grew thick. The wild cats were 
frequently heard by night wailing round the lodges of the rangers of 
Whittlebury and Needwood. The yellow-breasted martin was still 
pursued in Cranbourne Chase for his fur, reputed inferior only to 
that of the sable. Fen eagles, measuring more than nine feet between 
the extremities of the wings, preyed on fish along the coast of Nor- 
folk. On all the downs, from the British Channel to Yorkshire, huge 
bustards strayed in troops of fifty or sixty, and were often hunted 
with greyhounds. The marshes of Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire 
were covered during some months of every year by immense clouds 
of cranes. Some of these races the progress of cultivation has extir ~ 
pated. Of others the numbers are so much diminished that met 
crowd to gaze at a specimen as at a Bengal tiger, or a Polar bear.+ 
The progress of this great change can nowhere be more clear!? 


* Evelyn’s Diary, June 2, 1675. 
+ See White’s Selborne; Bell’s History of British Quadrupeds; Gentleman’s 
Recreation, 1686; Aubrey’s Natural History of Wiltshire, 1685; Morton’s History 
of Northamptonshire, 1712; Willoughby’s Ornithology, by Ray, 1678; Latham’s 
Sant Synopsis 0f Birds; and Sir Thomas Browne’s Account of Birds found in 
orfolk. 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 201 


ee, 

traced than in the Statute Book. The number of enclosure acts 
passed since King George the Second came to the throne exceeds 
_ four thousand. The area enclosed under the authority of those acts 
exceeds, on a moderate calculation, ten thousand square miles. How 
many square miles, which were formerly uncultivated or ill culti- 
vated, have, during the -same period, been fenced and carefully tilled 
by the proprietors without any application to the legislature, can 
only be conjectured. But it seems highly probable that 2 fourth 
part of England has been, in the course of little more than a century, 
turned from a wild into a garden. 

Even in those parts of the kingdom which at the close of the reign 
of Charles the Second were the best cultivated, the farming, though 
greatly improved since the civil war, was not such as would now be 
thought skilful. To this day no effectual steps have been taken by 
public authority for the purpose of obtaining accurate accounts of 
the produce of the English soil. The historian must therefore fol- 
low, with some misgivings, the guidance of those writers on statistics 
Whose reputation for diligence and fidelity stands highest. At pres- 
ent an average crop of wheat, rye, barley, oats, and beans, is sup- 
posed considerably to exceed thirty millions of quarters. The crop 
of wheat would be thought wretched if it did not exceed twelve 
Millions of quarters. According to the computation made in the 
“beg 1696 by Gregory King, the whole quantity of wheat, rye, bar 
Tey, oats, and beans, then annually grown in the kingdom, was some- 
what less than ten millions of quarters. The wheat, which was then 
cultivated only on the strongest clay, and consumed only by those 
who were in easy circumstances, he estimated at less than two mil- 
lions of quarters. Charles Davenant, an acute and well informed 
though most unprincipled and rancorous politician, differed from 
King as to some of the items of the account, but came to nearly the 
same general conclusions.* 

_ The rotation of crops was very imperfectly understood. It was 
known, indeed, that some vegetables lately introduced into our island, 
particularly the turnip, afforded excellent nutriment in winter to 
‘sheep and oxen: but it was not yet the practice to feed cattle in this 
Manner. It was therefore by no means easy to keep them alive during 
_ the season when the grass is scanty. They were killed and salted in 
great numbers at the beginpning of the cold weather; and, during 
several months, even the gentry tasted scarcely any fresh animal food, 
except game and river fish, which were consequently much more im- 
portant articles in housekeeping than at present. It appears from 
the Northumberland-Houschold Book that, in the reign of Henry tie 
- Seventh, fresh meat was never eaten even by the gentlemen attendant 
on a great Earl, except during the short interval between Midsummer 


_*King’s Natural and Political Conclusions. Davenant on the Balance of 
Trade. 


iia 


202 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


and Michaelmas. But in the course of two centuries an improve 
ment had taken place; and under Charles the Second it was not till 
the beginning of November that families laid in their stock of salt 
provisions, then called Martinmas beef.* 

The sheep and the ox of that time were diminutive when com- 
pared with the sheep and oxen which are now driven to our markets.+ 
Our native horses, though serviceable, were held in small esteem, and 
fetched low prices.- They were valued, one with another, by the 
ablest of those who computed the national wealth, at not more than 
fifty shillingseach. Foreign breeds were greatly preferred. Spanish 
jennets were regarded as the finest chargers, and were imported for 
purposes of pageantry and war. The coaches of. the aristocracy 
were drawn by grey Flemish mares, which trotted, as it was thought, 
with a peculiar grace, and endured better than any cattle reared in 
our island the work of dragging a ponderous equipage over the rug- 
ged pavement of London. Neither the modern dray horse nor the 
modern race horse was then known. At a much later period the an- 
cestors of the gigantic quadrupeds, which all foreigners now class 
among the chief wonders of London, were brought from the marshes 
of W alcheren ; the ancestors of Childers and Eclipse from the sands 
of Arabia. Already, however, there was among our nobility and 
gentry a passion for the amusements of the turf. The importance of 
improving our studs by an infusion of new blood was strongly felt; 
and with this view a considerable number of barbs had lately been 
brought into the country. Two men whose authority on such sub- 
jects was held in great esteem, the Duke of N ewcastle and Sir John 
Fenwick, pr onounced that the meanest hack ever imported from 
Tangier would produce a finer progeny than could be expected from 
the best sire of our native breed. They would not readily have be- 
lieved that a time would come when the princes and nobles of neigh- 
bouring lands would be as eager to obtain horses from England as 
ever the English had been to obtain horses from Barbary. t 

The increase of vegetable and animal produce, though great, seems 
small when compared with .the increase of our mineral wealth. In 
1685 the tin of Cornwall, which had, more than two thousand years 
before, attracted the Tyrian sails beyond the pillars of Hercules, 
was still one of the most valuatle subterranean productions of the 
island. The quantity annually extracted from the earth was found 


* See the Almanacks of 1684 and 1685. 

t sae. Mr. M’Culloch’s Statistical Account of the British Empire, Part III. chap. 
i. sec 

+ King and Davenant as before; The Duke of Newcastle on Horsemanship; 
Gentleman’ s Recreation, 1686. The ‘‘ dappled Flanders mares” were marks of 
greatness in the time of Pope, and even later. 

The vulgar proverb, that the grey mare is the better horse, originated, I sus- 

pect, in the preference generally given to the grey mares of Flanders over the 
finest coach horses of England. 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 203 


be, some years later, sixteen hundred tons, probably about a .third 


of what it now is.* But the veins of copper which lie in the same 


region were, in the time of Charles the Second, altogether neglected, 


‘nor did any landowner take them into the account in estimating the 


value of his property. Cornwall and Wales at present yield annually 
near fifteen thousand tons cf copper, worth near a million and a half 


sterling; that is to say, worth about twice as much as the annual pro- 


duce of all English mines of all descriptions in the seventeenth cen- 
tury. The first bed of rock salt had been discovered in Cheshire 
not long after the Restoration, but does not appear to have been 
worked till much later. The salt which was obtained by a rude pro- 
cess from brine pits was held in no high estimation. The pans in 
which the manufacture was carried on exhaled a sulphurous stench; 
and, when the evaporation was complete, the substance which was 
left was scarcely fit to be used with food. Physicians attributed the 
scorbutic and pulmonary complaints which were common among the 
English to this unwholesome condiment. It was therefore seldom 


4 


used by the upper and middle classes; and there was a regular and 


> 


considerable importation from France. At present our springs and 
mines not only supply our own immense demand, but send annually 
more than seven hundred millions of pounds of excellent salt to 
foreign countries. t 

Far more important has been the improvement of our iron works. 
Such works had long existed in our island, but had not prospered, and 
had been regarded with no favourable eye by the government and by 


the public. It was not then the practice to employ coal for smelting 
_ the ore; and the rapid consumption of wood excited the alarm of 


‘politicians. As early as the reign of Elizabeth, there had been loud 


- complaints that whole forests were cut down for the purpose of feed- 


ing the furnaces; and the Parliament had interfered to prohibit the 


_tmanufacturers from burning timber. ‘The manufacture consequently 


languished. At the close of the reign of Charles the Second, great 


part of the iron which was used in this country was imported from 
abroad; and the whole quantity cast here annually seems not to have 
exceeded ten thousand tons. At present the trade is thought to be in a 
depressed state if less than a million of tons are produced in a year.* 


*See a curious note by Tonkin, in Lord De Dunstanville’s edition of Carew’s 
ey of Cornwall. 

t Borlase’s Natural History of Cornwall, 1758. The quantity of copper now 

produced, I have taken from parliamentary returns. Davenant,'in 1700, esti- 


_ Mated the annual produce of all the minesof England at between seven and 
‘ ae hundred thousand pounds. 


Philosophical Transactions, No. 53. Nov. 1669, No. 66. Dec. 1670, No. 103. 


_ May 1674, No. 156. Feb. 1683-4. 


§ Yarranton, England’s Improvement by Sea and Land, 1677; Porter’s Prog- 


_ Tess of the Nation. See also a remarkably perspicuous history, in small com- 


re 
; 


: 


ey of the English iron works, in Mr. M’Culloch’s Statistical Account of the 
‘British Empire. 


Rise 


“a 


sty ae cd 
ee y 


204 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


One mineral, perhaps more important than iron itself, remains to 
be mentioned. Coal, though very little used in any species of manu- 
facture, was already the ordinary fuel in some districts which were 
fortunate enough to possess large beds, and in the capital, which could 
easily be supplied by water carriage. It seems reasonable to believe 
that at least one half of the quantity then extracted from the pits was 
consumed in London. ‘The consumption of London seemed to the 
writers of that age enormous, and was often mentioned by them as a 
proof of the greatness of the imperial city. They scarcely hoped to 
be believed when they affirmed that two hundred and eighty thousand 
chaldrons, that is to say, about three hundred and fifty thousandistons, 
were, in the last year of the reign of Charles the Second, brought to 
the Thames. At present three millions and a half of tons are required 
yearly by the metropolis; and the whole annual produce cannot, on 
the most moderate computation, be estimated at less than thirty mil- 
lions of tons.* 

While these great changes have been in progress, the rent of land 
_ has, as might be expected, been almost constantly rising. In some 
districts it has multiplied more than tenfold. Insome it has not more 
than doubled. It has probably, on the average, quadrupled. 

Of the rent, a large proportion was divided among the country gen- 
tlemen, a class of persons whose position and character it is most im. 
portant that we should clearly understand; for by their influence and 
by their passions the fate of the nation was, at several important con- 
junctures, determined. 

We should be much mistaken if we pictured to ourselves the squires 
of the seventeenth century as men bearing a close resemblance to their 
descendants, the county members and chairmen of quarter sessions 
with whom we are familiar. The modern country gentleman gener- 
ally receives a liberal education, passes from a distinguished school to 
a distinguished college, and has ample opportunity to become an ex- 
cellent scholar. He has generally seen something of foreign countries. 
A considerable part of his life has generally been passed in the capi- 
tal; and the refinements of the capital follow him into the country. 
There is perhaps no class of dwellings so pleasing as the rural seats 
of the English gentry. In the parks and pleasure grounds, nature, 
dressed yet not disguised by art, wears her most alluring form. In 
the buildings, good sense and eood taste combine to produce a happy 
union of the comfortable and the graceful. The pictures, the musical 
instruments, the library, would in any other country be considered as 
proving the owner to be an eminently polished and accomplished man, 
A country So ans who witnessed the Revolution was probably in 


* See Been ayie’ s State of England, 1684, 1687; Anglize Ce a 
M’Culloch’s Statistical Account of the British Empire, Part III. ¢ we 7 ii. (edi 
of 1847). In 1845 the quantity of coal brought into London anes by the Par. 
liamentary returns, to be 3,460,900 tons. (1848.) In 1854 the quantity of coal 
brought into London amounted to 4,378,000 ret (1857.) 


al 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 205 


receipt of about a fourth part of the rent which his acres now yield 
to his posterity. He was, therefore, as compared with his posterity, 
a poor man, and was generally under the necessity of residing, with 
little interruption, on his estate. To travel on the Continent, to main- 
tain an establishment in London, or even to visit London frequently, 
were pleasures in which only the great proprietors could indulge. ‘It 
may be confidently affirmed that of the squires whose names were 
then in the Commissions of Peace and Lieutenancy not one in twenty 
went to town once in five years, or had ever in his life wandered so 
far as Paris. Many lords of manors had received an education differ- 
ing little from that of their menial servants. The heir of an estate 


often passed his boyhood and youth at the seat of his family with no 


better tutors than groomsand gamekeepers, and scarce attained learn- 
ing enough to sign his name to a Mittimus. If he went to school and 
to college, he generally returned before he was twenty to the seclusion 
of the old hall, and there, unless his mind was very happily consti- 
tuted by nature, soon forgot his academical pursuits in rural business 
and pleasures. His chief serious employment was the care of his 
property. He examined samples of grain, handled pigs, and, on 
market days, made bargains over a tankard with drovers and hop 
merchants. His chief pleasures were commonly derived from field 
sports and from an unrefined sensuality. His language and pronun- 
ciation were such as we should now expect to hear only from the most 
ignorant clowns. His oaths, coarse jests, and scurrilous terms of 
abuse, were uttered with the broadest accent of his province. It was 
easy to discern, from the first words which he spoke, whether he came 
from Somersetshire or Yorkshire. He troubled himself little about 
decorating his abode, and, if he attempted decoration, seldom pro- 
duced anything but deformity. The litter of a farmyard gathered 


under the windows of his bedchamber, and the cabbages and goose- 


berry bushes grew close to his hall door. His table was loaded with 
coarse plenty; and guests were cordially welcomed to it. But, as the 
habit of drinking to excess was general in the class to which he be- 
longed, and as his fortune did not enable him to intoxicate large as- 
Semblies daily with claret or canary, strong beer was the ordinary 
beverage. ‘The quantity of beer consumed in those days was indeed 
enormous. For beer then was to the middle and lower classes, not 
only all that beer is, but all that wine, tea, and ardent spirits now are. 
It was EaAy at great houses, or on great occasions, that foreign drink 
was placed on the board. The ladies of the house, whose business it 
had commonly been to cook the repast, retired as soon as the dishes 


had been devoured, and left the gentlemen to their ale and tobacco. 


The coarse jollity of the afternoon was often prolonged till the revel- 
lers were laid under the table. 
It was very seldom that the country gentleman caught glimpses of 


_ the great world; and what he saw of it tended rather to confuse than 


to enlighten his understanding. His opinions respecting religion, 


% 


*% ae 
a te. > ¥ 
; 


206 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


government, foreign countries and former times, having been derived, 
not from study, from observation, or from conversation with enlight- 
ened companions, but from such traditions as were current in his own 
small circle, were the opinions of a child. He adhered to them, how- 
ever, with the obstinacy which is generally found in ignorant men 
accustomed to be fed with flattery. His animosities were numerous 
and bitter. He hated Frenchmen and Italians, Scotchmen and Irish- 
incn, Papists and Presbyterians, Independents and Baptists, Quakers 
and Jews. Towards London and Londoners he felt an aversion 
which more than once produced important political effects. His wife 
and daughter were in tastes and acquirements below a housekeeper or 
a stillroom maid of the present day. They stitched and spun, brewed 
gooseberry wine, cured marigolds, and made the crust for the venison 
astry. 
i ror this description it might be supposed that the English esquire 
of the seventeenth century did not materially differ from a rustic 
miller or alehouse keeper of our time. ‘There are, however, some 
important parts of his character still to be noted, which will greatly 
modify this estimate. Unlettered as he was and unpolished, he was 
still in some most important points a gentleman. He was a member 
of a proud and powerful aristocracy, and was distinguished by many 
both of the good and of the bad qualities which belong*to aristocrats. 
His family pride was beyond that of a Talbot or a Howard. He knew 
the genealogies and coats of arms of all his neighbours, and could tell 
which of them had assumed supporters without any right, and which 
of them were so unfortunate as to be greatgrandsons of aldermen. 
He was a magistrate, and, as such, administered gratuitously to those 
who dwelt around him a rude patriarchal justice, which, in spite of 
innumerable blunders and of occasional acts of tyranny, was yet bet- 
ter than no justice at all. He was an officer of the trainbands; and 
his military dignity, though it might move the mirth of gallants who 
had served a campaign in Flanders, raised his character in his own 
eyes and in the eyes of his neighbours. Nor indeed was his soldier- 
ship justly a subject of derision. In every county there were elderly 
gentlemen who had seen service which was no child’s play. One had 
been knighted by Charles the First, after the battle of Edgehill. An- 
other still wore a patch over the scar which he had received at Naseby. 
A third had defended his old house till Fairfax had blown in the door 
with a petard. The presence of these old Cavaliers, with their old 
swords and holsters, and with their old stories about Goring and 
Lunsford, gave to the musters of militia an earnest and warlike aspect 
which would otherwise have been wanting. Even those country gen- 
tlemen who were too young to have themselves exchanged blows 
with the cuirassiers of the Parliament had, from childhood, been sur- 
rounded by the traces of recent war, and fed with stories of the mar- 
tial exploits of their fathers and uncles. Thus the character of the 
English esquire of the seventeenth century was compounded of two 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 207 


elements which we seldom or never find united. His ignorance and 
uncouthness, his low tastes and gross phrases, would, in our time, be 
considered as indicating a nature and a breeding thoroughly plebeian. 
Yet he was essentially a patrician, and had, in large measure, both 
the virtues and the vices which flourish among men set from their 
birth in high place, and used to respect themselves and to be respected 
by others. It is not easy for a generation accustomed to find chival- 
rous sentiments only in company with liberal studies and polished 
manners to image to itself a man -with the deportment, the vocabu- 
lary, and the accent of a carter, yet punctilious on matters of geneal- 
ogy and precedence, and ready to risk his life rather than see a stain 
cast on the honour of his house. It is however only by thus joining 
together things seldom or never found together in our own experi- 
ence, that we can form a just idea of that rustic aristocracy which 
constituted the main strength of the armies of Charles the First, and 
which long supported, with strange fidelity, the interest of his de- 
—scendants, 
The gross, uneducated, untravelled country gentleman was com- 
monly a Tory; but, though devotedly attached to hereditary monar- 
chy, he had no partiality for courtiers and ministers. He thought, 
not without reason, that Whitehall was filled with the most corrupt of 
mankind, and that of the great sums which the House of Commons 
had voted to the crown since the Restoration part had been embezzled 
by cunning politicians, and part squandered on buffoons and foreign 
‘courtesans. His stout English heart swelled with indignation at the 
thought that the government of his country should be subject to 
French dictation. Being himself generally an old Cavalier, or the 
‘son of an old Cavalier, he reflected with bitter resentment on the in- 
ude with which the Stuarts had requited their best friends. 
hose who heard him grumble at the neglect with which he was 
treated, and at the profusion with which wealth was lavished on the 
bastards of Nell Gwynn and Madam Carwell, would have supposed 
him ripe for rebellion. But all this ill humour lasted only till the 
throne was really in danger. It was precisely when those whom the 
sovereign had loaded with wealth and honours shrank from his side 
that the country gentlemen, so surly and mutinous in the season of 
his prosperity, rallied round him in a body. Thus, after murmuring 
twenty years at the misgovernment of Charles the Second, they came 
to his rescue in his extremity, when his own Secretaries of State and 
the Lords of his own Treasury had deserted him, and enabled him to 
goin a complete victory over the opposition; nor can there be any 
doubt that they would have shown equal loyalty to his brother James, 
if James would, even at the last moment, have refrained from out- 
raging their strongest feeling. For there was one institution, and one 
only, which they prized even more than hereditary monarchy; and 
that institution was the Church of England. Their love of the 
Church was not, indeed, the effect of study or meditation. Few 


208 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


among them could have given any reason, drawn from Scripture or 
ecclesiastical history, for adhering to her doctrines, her ritual, and 
her polity; nor were they, as a class, by any means strict observers 
of that code of morality which is common to all Christian sects. But 
the experience of many ages proves that men may be ready to fight 
to the death, and to persecute without pity, for a religion whose 
creed they do not understand, and whose precepts they habitually 
disobey.* 

The rural clergy were even more vehement in Toryism than the 
rural gentry, and were a class scarcely less important. It is to be ob- 
served, however, that the individual clergyman, as compared with 
the individual gentleman, then ranked much lower than in our days. 
The main support of the Church was derived from the tithe; and the 
tithe bore to the rent a much smaller ratio than at present. King 
estimated the whole income of the parochial and collegiate clergy at 
only four hundred and eighty thousand pounds a year; Davenant at 
only five hundred and forty-four thousand a year. It is certainly . 
now more than seven times as great as the larger of these two sums. 
The average rent of the land has not, according to any estimate, in- 
creased proportionally. It follows that the rectors and vicars must 
have been, as compared with the neighbouring knights and squires, 
much poorer in the seventeenth than in the nineteenth century. Ra 

The place of the clergyman in society had been completely changed 
by the Reformation. Before that event, ecclesiastics had formed the 
majority of the House of Lords, had, in wealth and splendour, equal- 
led, and sometimes outshone, the greatest of the temporal barons, and 
had generally held the highest civil offices. Many of the Treasurers, 
and almost all the Chancellors of the Plantagenets were Bishops. The 
Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal and the Master of the Rolls were ordi- 
narily churchmen. Churchmen transacted the most important dip- 
lomatic business. Indeed all that large portion of the administration 
which rude and warlike nobles were incompetent to conduct was con- 
sidered as especially belonging to divines. Men, therefore, who were 
averse to the life of camps, and who were, at the same time, desirous 
to rise in the state, commonly received the tonsure. Among them 
were sons of all the most illustrious families, and near kinsmen of the 
throne, Scroops and Nevilles, Bourchiers, Staffords and Poles. To 
the religious houses belonged the rents of immense domains, and all 
that large portion of the tithe which is now in the hands of laymen. 
Down to the middle of the reign of Henry the Eighth, therefore, no 
line of life was so attractive to ambitious and covetous natures as the 
priesthood. Then came a violent revolution. The abolition of the 


* My notion of the country gentleman of theseventeenth century has been. 
derived from sources too numerous to be recapitulated. I must leave my de- 
scription to the judgment of those who have studied the history and the lighter 
literature of that age. 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 209 


-monasteries deprived the Church at once of the greater part of her 
wealth, and of her predominance in the Upper House of Parliament. 
There was no longer an Abbot of Glastonbury or an Abbot of Reading 
seated among the peers, and possessed of revenues equal to those of 
a powerful Earl. The princely splendour of William of Wykeham 
and of William of Waynflete had disappeared. The scarlet hat of 
the Cardinal, the silver cross of the Legate, were no more. The 
clergy had also lost the ascendency which is the natural reward of 
superior mental cultivation. Once the circumstance that a man could 
read had raised a presumption that he was in orders. But, in an age 
which produced such laymen as William Cecil and Nicholas Bacon, 
Roger Ascham and Thomas Smith, Walter Mildmay and Francis 

Walsingham, there was no reason for calling away prelates from their 
dioceses to negotiate treaties, to superintend the finances, or to admin- 
ister justice. The spiritual character not only ceased to be a qualiti- 
cation for high civil office, but began to be regarded as a disqualifica- 

- tion. Those worldly motives, therefore, which had formerly induced 
so many able, aspiring, and high born youths to assume the ecclesias- 
tical habit, ceased to operate. Not one parish in two hundred the 
afforded what a man of family considered as a maintenance. There 
were still indeed prizes in the Church: but they were few; and even 
the highest were mean, when compared with the glory which had 
once surrounded the princes of the hierarchy. The state kept by 
Parker and Grindal seemed beggarly to those who remembered the 
imperial pomp of Wolsey, his palaces, which had become the favourite 
abodes of royalty, Whitehall and Hampton Court, the three sumptu- 
ous tables daily spread in his refectory, the forty-four gorgeous copes 
in his chapel, his running footmen in rich liveries, and his body 
guards with gilued poleaxes. Thus the sacerdotal office lost its at- 
traction for the higher classes. During the century which followed 
the accession of Elizabeth, scarce a single person of noble descent took 
orders. At the close of the reign of Charles the Second, two sons of 
peers were Bishops; four or five sons of peers were priests, and held 
Valuable preferment: but these rare exceptions did not take away 
the reproach which lay on the body. The clergy were regarded as, 
on the whole, a plebeian class.* And, indeed, for one who made the 
figure of a gentleman, ten were mere menial servants. A large pro- 
portion of those divines who had no benefices, or whose benetices 
Were too small to afford a comfortable revenue, lived in the houses of 


' _* In the eighteenth century the great increase in the value of benefices pro- 
duced a change. The younger sons of the nobility were allured back to the 
clerical profession. Warburton in a letter to Hurd, dated the 5th of July, 1752, 
Mentions this change, which was then recent. ‘“‘Our grandees have at last found 
their way back into the Church. I only wonder they have been so long about sb. 
But be assured that nothing but a new religious revolution, to sweep away the 

fragments that Henry the Highth left after banqueting his courtiers, will drive 
them out again.” ; 


210 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


laymen. It had long been evident that this practice tended to degrade 
the priestly character. Laud had exerted himself to effect a change; 
and Charles the First had repeatedly issued positive orders that none 
but men of high rank should presume to keep domestic chaplains.* 
But these injunctions had become obsolete. Indeed during the domi- ~ 
nation of the Puritan, many of the ejected ministers of the Church of 
England could obtain bread and shelter only by attaching themselves 
to the households of royalist gentlemen; and the habits which had 
been formed in those times of trouble continued long after the reestab- 
lishment of monarchy and episcopacy. In the mansions of men of 
liberal sentiments and cultivated understandings, the chaplain was — 
doubtless treated with urbanity and kindness. His conversation, his 
literary assistance, his spiritual advice, were considered as an ample 
return for his food, his lodging, and his stipend. But this was not the 
general feeling of the country gentlemen. The coarse and ignorant 
squire, who thought that it belonged to his dignity to have grace said 
every day at his table by an ecclesiastic in full canonicals, found 
means to reconcile dignity with economy. A young Levite—such was 
the phrase then in use—might be had for his board, a small garret, and 
ten pounds a year, and might not only perform his own professional 
functions, might only be the most patient of butts and of listeners, 
might not only be always ready in fine weather for bowls, and in 
rainy weather for shovelboard, but might also save the expense of a 
gardener, or of a groom. Sometimes the reverend man nailed up the 
apricots; and sometimes he curried thecoach horses. He cast up the 
furrier’s bills. He walked ten miles with a message or a parcel. He 
was permitted to dine with the family; but he was expected to con- 
tent himself with the plainest fare. He might fill himself with the 
corned beef and the carrots: but, as soon as the tarts and cheesecakes 
made their appearance, he quitted his seat, and stood aloof till he was 
summoned to return thanks for the repast, from a great part of which 
he had been excluded. + 

Perhaps, after some years of service, he was presented to a living 
sufficient to support him; but he often found it necessary to purchase 
his preferment by a species of Simony, which furnished an inex- 
haustible subject of pleasantry to three or four generations of scoffers. 
With his cure he was expected to take a wife. The wife had ordina- — 
rily been in the patron’s service; and it was well if she was not sus- 
pected of standing too high in the patron’s favour. Indeed the nature 
of the matrimonial connections which the clergymen of that age were 
in the habit of forming is the most certain indication of the place 
which the order held in the social system. An Oxonian, writing a 


* See Heylin’s Cyprianus Anglicus. 

+ Eachard, Causes of the Contempt of the Clergy; Oldham, Satire addressed 
toa Friend about to leave the Univer sity; Tatler, 255, 258. That the English 
clergy were a lowborn class, is remarked in the Travels of the Grand Duke 
Cosmo Appendix A. 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 211 


-few-months after the death of Charles the Second, complained bitter- 
ly, not only that the country attorney and the country apothecary 
- Jooked down with disdain on the country clergyman, but that one of 
the lessons most earnestly inculcated on every girl of honourable fam- 
ily was to give no encouragement to a lover in orders, and that, if 
any young lady forgot this precept, she was almost as much disgraced 
as by an illicit amour.* Clarendon, who assuredly bore no ill will to 
the priesthood, mentions it as a sign of the confusion of ranks which 
the great rebellion had produced, that some damsels of noble families 
had bestowed themselves on divines.t A waiting woman was gener- 
ally considered as the most suitable helpmate for a parson. ueen 
Elizabeth, as head of the Church, had given what seemed to be a for- 
mal sanction to this prejudice, by issuing special orders that no cler- 
gyman should presume to espouse a servant girl, without the consent 
of the master or mistress.{| During several generations accordingly 
the relation between divines and handmaidens was a theme for end- 
less jest; nor would it be easy to find, in the comedy of the seven- 
teenth century, a single instance of a clergyman who wins a spouse 
above the rank of cook.§ Even so late as the time of George the 
Second, the keenest of all observers of life and manners, himself a 
priest, remarked that, in a great household, the chaplain was the re- 
source of a lady’s maid whose character had been blown upon, and 
who was therefore forced to give up hopes of catching the steward. | 
_ In general the divine who quitted his chaplainship for a benefice 
and a wife found that he had only exchanged one class of vexations 
for another. Hardly one living in fifty enabled the incumbent to 
bring up a family comfortably. As children multiplied and grew, 
the household of the priest became more and more beggarly. Holes 
appeared more and more plainly in the thatch of his parsonage and 
in his single cassock. Often it was only by toiling on his glebe, by 
feeding swine, and by loading dungcarts, that he could obtain daily 
bread; nor did his utmost exertions always prevent the bailiffs from 


* “A causidico, medicastro, ipsaque artificum farragine, ecclesis rector aut 
vicarius contemnitur et fit ludibrio. Gentis et familis nitor sacris ordinibus 
pollutus censetur: foeminisque natalitio insignibus unicum inculcatur szepius 
“2 eainie ne modestie naufragium faciant, aut, (quod idem auribus tam de- 
icatulis sonat,) ne clerico se nuptas dari patiantur.”—Angliz Notitia, by T. 
- Wood, of New College, Oxford, 1686. 

- ‘ Clarendon’'s Life, ii. 21. 

t See the injunctions of 1559, in Bishop Sparrow’s Collection. Jeremy Collier, 
in his Essay on Pride, speaks of this injunction with a bitterness which proves 
that his own pride had not been effectually tamed. 

§ Roger and Abigail in Fletcher’s Scornful Lady, Bull and the Nurse in 
peeetueh’s Relapse, Smirk and Susan in Shadwell’s Lancashire Witches, are 

nstances. 

| Swift’s Directions to Servants. In Swift’s Remarks on the Clerical Residence 
Bill, he describes the family of an English vicar thus:—‘' His wife is little bet- 
ter than a Goody, in her birth, education, or dress. . . . His daughter shall 
go to service, or be sent apprentice to the sempstress of the next town.” 


212 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


taking his concordance and his inkstand in execution. It was a 
white day on which he was admitted into the kitchen of a great 
house, and regaled by the servants with cold meat and ale. His 
children were brought up like the children of the neighbouring 
peasantry. His boys followed the plough; and his girls went out to 
service.* Study he found impossible: for the advowson of his living 
would hardly have sold for a sum sufficient to purchase a good theo- 
logical library; and he might be considered as unusually lucky if had 
ten or twelve dogeared volumes among the pots and pans on his 
shelves. Even a keen and strong intellect might be expected to rust 
in so unfavourable a situation. 

Assuredly there was at that time no lack in the English Church of 
ministers distinguished by abilities and learning. But it is to be ob- 
served that these ministers were not scattered among the rural popu- 
lation, They were brought together at a few places where the means 
of acquiring knowledge were abundant, and where the opportunities 
of vigorous intellectual exercises were frequent.+ At such places 
were to be found divines qualified by parts, by eloquence, by wide 
knowledge of literature, of science, and of life, to defend their 
Church victoriously against heretics and sceptics, to command the 
attention of frivolous and worldly congregations, to guide the de- 
liberations of senates, and to make religion respectable, even in the 
most dissolute of courts. Some laboured to fathom the abysses of 
metaphysical theology: some were deeply versed in biblical criticism; 
and some threw light on the darkest parts of ecclesiastical history. 
Some proved themselves consummate masters of logic. Some culti- 
vated rhetoric with such assiduity and success that their discourses 
ure still justly valued as models of style. These eminent men were 
to be found, with scarcely a single exception, at the Universities, at 
the great Cathedrals, or in the capital. Barrow had lately died at 
Cambridge; and Pearson had gone thence to the episcopal bench. 
Cudworth and Henry More were still living there. South and Po- 
cocke, Jane and Aldrich, were at Oxford, Prideaux was in the close 
of Norwich, and Whitby in the close of Salisbury. But it was chiefly 
by the London clergy, who were always spoken of as a class apart, 
that the fame of their profession for learning and eloquence was up- 
held. The principal pulpits of the metropolis were occupied about 
this time by a crowd of distinguished men, from among whom was 
selected a large proportion of the rulers of the Church. Sherlock 


* Even in Tom Jones, published two generations later, Mrs. Seagrim, the wife — 
of a gamekeeper, and Mrs. Honour, a waitingwoman, beast of their descent 
from clergymen. ‘ It is to be hoped.”’ says Fielding, ‘‘such instances will in 
future ages, when some provision is made for the families of the inferjor 
clergy, appear stranger than they can be thought at present.”’ 

+ This distinction between country clergy and town clergy is strongly marked 
by Eachard, and cannot but be observed by every person who has ‘studied the 
ecclesiastical history of that age, ; 1 f 


oe ; 
| 
‘a Al 


ie 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 213 


preached at the Temple, Tillotson at Lincoln’s Inn, Wake and 
‘Jeremy Collier at Gray’s Inn, Burnet at the Rolls, Stillingfleet at 
Saint Paul’s Cathedral, Patrick at Saint Paul’s in Covent Garden, 
Fowler at Saint Giles’s, Cripplegate, Sharp at Saint Giles’s in the 
Fields, Tenison at Saint Martin’s, Sprat at Saint Margaret’s, Bev- 
eridge at Saint Peter s in Cornhill. Of these twelve men, all of high 
note in ecclesiastical history, ten became Bishops, and four Arch- 
bishops. Meanwhile almost the only important theological works 
which came forth from a rural parsonage wore those of George Bull, 
afterwards Bishop of Saint David’s; and Bull never would have pro- 
duced those works, had he not inherited an estate, by the sale of 
which he was enabled to collect a library, such as probably no other 
country clergyman in England possessed. * 

Thus the Anglican priesthood was divided into two sections, which, 
in acquirements, in manners, and in social position, differed widely 
from each other. One section, trained for cities and courts, com- 
prised men familiar with all ancient and modern learning; men able 
to encounter Hobbes or Bossuet at all the weapons of controversy; 
men who could, in their sermons, set forth the majesty and beauty 

of Christianity with such justness of thought, and such energy of 
language, that the indolent Charles roused himself to listen, and the 
fastidious Buckingham forgot to sneer; men whose address, polite- 
ness, and knowledge of the world qualificd them to manage the con- 
sciences of the wealthy and noble; men with whom Halifax loved to 
discuss the interests of empires, and from whom Dryden was not 
ashamed to own that he had learned to write.+ The other section 
was destined to ruder and humbler service. It was dispersed over 
the country, and consisted chiefly of persons not at all wealthier, and 
not much more refined, than small farmers or upper servants. Yet 
it was in these rustic priests, who derived but a scanty subsistence 
from their tithe sheaves and tithe pigs, and who had not the smallest 
chance of ever attaining high professional honours, that the profes- 
sional spirit was strongest. Among those divines who were the boast 
of the Universities and the delight of the capital, and who had at- 
tained, or might reasonably expect to attain, opulence and lordly 
rank, a party, respectable in numbers, and more respectable in char- 
acter, Raion: towards constitutional principles of government, lived 
on friendly terms with Presbyterians, Independents, and Baptists, 
would gladly have seen a full toleration granted to all Protestant 
sects, and would even have consented to make alterations in the 


* Nelson’s Life of Bull. As to the extreme difficulty which the country 
elergy found in procuring books, see the Life of Thomas Bray, the founder of 
the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. ‘ 

t *I have frequently heard him (Dryden) own with pleasure, that if he had 
any talent for English prose it was owing to his having often read the writ- 
nes of the great Archbishop Tiljotson."’—Congreve’s Dedication of Dryden’s 

ys. Bo taipersecayen y 


O14 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


Liturgy, for the purpose of conciliating honest and candid Noncon. 


formists. But such latitudinarianism was held in horror by the 
country parson. He took, indeed, more pride in his ragged gown 
than his superiors in their lawn and their scarlet hoods. The very. 
consciousness that there was little in his worldly circumstances to 
distinguish him from the villagers to whom he preached led him to 
hold immoderately high the dignity of that sacerdotal office which 
was his single title to reverence. Having lived in seclusion, and 
having had little opportunity of correcting his opinions by reading o1 
conversation, he held and taught the doctrines of indefeasible heredi- 
tary right, of passive obedience, and of nonresistance, in all their 
crude absurdity. Having been long engaged in a petty war against 
the neighbouring dissenters, he too often hated them for the wrong 
which he had done them, and found no fault with the Five Mile Act 
and the Conventicle Act, except that those odious laws had not a. 
sharper edge. Whatever influence his office gave him was exerted 
with passionate zeal on the Tory side; and that influence was im- 
mense. It would be a great error to imagine, because the country 
rector was in general not regarded as a gentleman, because he could 
not dare to aspire to the hand of one of the young ladies at the manor 
house, because he was not asked into the parlours of the great, but 
was left to drink and smoke with grooms and butlers, that the power 
of the clerical body was smaller than at present. The influence of a 
class is by no means proportioned to the consideration which the 
members of that class enjoy in their individual capacity. A Cardinal 
is amuch more exalted personage than a begging friar: but it would 
be a grievous mistake to suppose that the College of Cardinals has 
exercised a greater dominion over the public mind of Europe than 
the Order of Saint Francis. In Ireland, at present, a peer holds a 
far higher station in soeiety than a Roman Catholic priest: yet there 


are in Munster and Connaught few counties where a combination of 


priests would not carry an election against a combination of peers. 
In the seventeenth century the pulpit was to a large portion of the 
population what the periodical press now is. Scarce any of the 
clowns who came to the parish church ever saw a Gazette or a po- 
litical pamphlet. Ill informed as their spiritual pastor might be, he 
was yet better informed than themselves: he had every week an op- 
portunity of haranguing them; and his harangues were never an- 
swered. At every important conjuncture, invectives against the 
Whigs and exhortations to obey the Lord’s anointed resounded at 
once from many thousands of pulpits; and the effect was formidable 
indeed. Of all the causes which, after the dissolution of the Oxford 
Parliament, produced the violent reaction against the Exclusion- 
ists, the most potent seems to have been the oratory of the country 
clergy. 


The power which the country gentleman and the country clergy 


man exercised in the rural districts was in somé measure counter. 


2 
f 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 215 


balanced by the power of the yeomanry, an eminently manly and 
truehearted race. The petty proprietors who cultivated their own 
fields with their own hands, and enjoyed a modest eompetence, with- 
out affecting to have scutcheons and crests, or aspiring to sit on the 
- bench of justice, then formed a much more important part of the 
nation than at present. If we may trust the best statistical writers 
of that age, not less than a hundred and sixty thousand proprietors, 
wh» with their families must have made up more than a seventh of 
_the whole population, derived their subsistence from little freehold 
estates. The average income of these small landholders, an income 
made up of rent, profit, and wages, was estimated at between sixty 
and seventy poundsa year. It was computed that the number of 
persons who tilled their own land was greater than the number of 
those who farmed the land of others.* A large portion of the yeo- 
manry had, from the time of the Reformation, leaned towards 
‘Puritanism, had, in the civi? war, taken the side of the Parliament, 
had, after the Restoration, persisted in hearing Presbyterian and In- 
dependent preachers, had, at elections, strenuously supported the 
Exclusionists, and ‘had continued, even after the discovery of the 
Rye House plot and the proscription of the Whig leaders, to regard 
Popery and arbitrary power with unmitigated hostility. 
Great as has been the change in the rural life of England since the 
_ Revolution, the change which has come to pass in the cities is 
still more amazing. At present above a sixth part of the nation is 
crowded into provincial towns of more than thirty thousand in- 
habitants. In the reign of Charles the Second no provincial town 
in the kingdom contained thirty thousand inhabitants; and only 
four provincial towns contained so many as ten thousand in- 
habitants. 
Next to the capital, but next at an immense distance, stood Bristol, 
then the first English seaport, and Norwich, then the first English 
manufacturing town. Both have since that time been far outstripped 
by younger rivals; yet both have made great positive advances. ‘The 
population of Bristol has quadrupled. The population of Norwich 
has more than doubled. 
Pepys, who visited Bristol eight years after the Restoration, was 
struck by the splendour of the city. But his standard was not high; 
for he noted down as a wonder the circumstance that, in Bristol, a 
“Maan might look round him and see nothing but houses. It seems 
that, in no other place with which he was acquainted, except London, 
_ did the buildings completely shut out the woods and fields. Large 
as Bristol might then appear, it occupied but a very small portion of 

the area on which it now stands. A few churches of eminent beauty 
_ rose out of a labyrinth of narrow lanes built upon vaults of no great 

solidity. If acoach or a cart entered those alleys, there was danger 


* YT have taken Davenant’s estimate, which is a little lower than King’s. 


oe 
¥ A 
o , : j ie. 


~” 


216 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


that it would be wedged between the houses, and danger also that it 
would break in the cellars. Goods were therefore conveyed about 
the town almost exclusively in trucks drawn by dogs; and the rich- 
est inhabitants exhibited their wealth, not by riding in gilded 
carriages, but by walking the streets with trains of servants in rich 
liveries, and by keeping tables loaded with good cheer. The pomp 
of the christenings and burials far exceeded what was seen at any 
other place in England. ‘The hospitality of the city was widely re- 
nowned, and especially the collations with which the sugar refiners 
rigaled their visitors. The repast was dressed in the furnace, and 
was accompanied by a rich beverage made of the best Spanish wine, 
and celebrated over the whole kingdom as Bristol milk. ‘This lux- 
ury was supported by a thriving trade with the North Amcrican 
plantations and with the West Indies. The passion for colonial 
traffic was so strong that there was scarcely a small shopkeeper in 
Bristol who had not a venture on board of some ship bound for Vir- 
ginia or the Antilles. Some of these ventures indeed were not of the 
most honourable kind. There was, in the Transatlantic possessions 
of the crown, a great demand for labour; and this demand was 
partly supplied by a system of crimping and kidnapping at the prin- 
cipal English seaports. Nowhere was this system in such active and 
extensive operation as at Bristol. Even the first magistrates of that 
city were not ashamed to enrich themselves by so odious a commerce. 
The number of houses appears, from the returns of the hearth 
money, to have been in the year 1685, just five thousand three hun- 
dred. We can hardly suppose the number of persons in a house to 
have been greater than in the city of London; and in the city of 
London we learn from the best authority that there were then fifty- 
five persons to ten houses. ‘The population of Bristol must therefore - 
have been about twenty-nine thousand souls.* 

Norwich was the capital of a large and fruitful province. It was_ 
the residence of a Bishop and of a Chapter. It was the chief seat 
of the chief manufacture of the realm. Some men distinguished by 
learning and science had recently dwelt there; and no place in the 
kingdom, except the capital and the Universities, had more attrac- 
tions for the curious. The library, the museum, the aviary, and the 
botanical garden of Sir Thomas Browne, were thought by Fellows 
of the Royal Society well worthy of a long pilgrimage. Norwich 


* Evelyn’s Diary, June 27, 1654; Pepys’s Diary, June 13, 1668. Roger North’s 
Lives of Lord Keeper Guildford, and of Sir Dudley North; Petty’s Political 
Arithmetic. I have taken Petty’s facts, but, in drawing inferences from them, 
J have been guided by King and Davenant, who, though not abler men than he, 
had the advantage of coming after him. As to the kidnapping for which — 
Bristol was infamous, see North’s Life of Guildford, 121, 216, and the harangue 
of Jeffreys on the subject, in the Impartial History of his Life and Death. 
printed with the Bloody Assizes. His style was, as usual, coarse; but I cannot 
reckon the reprimand which he gave to the magistrates of Bristol among his 
crimes. 


= 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 217 


had also a court in miniature. In the heart of the city stood an old 
palace of the Dukes of Norfolk, said to be the largest town house in 
the kingdom out of London. In this mansion, to which were an- 
nexed a tennis court, a bowling green, and a wilderness stretching 
along the banks of the Wansum, the noble family of Howard fre- 
uently resided, and kept a state resembling that of petty sovereigns. 
Drink was served to guests in goblets of pure gold. The very tongs 
and shovels were of silver. Pictures by Italian masters adorned the 
walls The cabinets were filled with a fine collection of gems pur- 
chased by that Earl of Arundel whose marbles are now among the 
ornaments of Oxford. Here, in the year 1671, Charles and his court 
were sumptuously entertained. Here, too, all comers were annually 
welcomed, from Christmas to Twelfth Night. Ale flowed in oceans 
for the populace. Three coaches, one of which had been built at a 
cost of five hundred pounds to contain fourteen persons, were sent 
every afternoon round the city to bring ladies to the festivities; and 
the dances were always followed by a luxurious banquet. When 
the Duke of Norfolk came to Norwich, he was greeted like a King 
returning to his capital. The bells of the Cathedral and of St. Peter 
Mancroft were rung: the guns of the castle were fired; and the 
Mayor and Aldermen waited on their illustrious fellow citizen with 
complimentary addresses. In the year 1693 the population of Nor- 
wich was found by actual enumeration, to be between twenty-eight 
and twenty-nine thousand souls.* 
_ Far below Norwich, but still high in dignity and importance, were 
some other ancient capitals of shires. In that age it was seldom that 
a country gentleman went up with his family to London. The 
county town was his metropolis. He sometimes made it his residence 
during part of the year. At all events, he was oftenattracted thither 
by business and pleasure, by assizes, quarter sessions, elections, 
musters of militia, festivals, and races. ‘There were the halls where 
the judges, robed in scarlet and escorted by javelins and trumpets, 
opened the King’s commission twicea year. There were the markets 
at which the corn, the cattle, the wool, and the hops of the surround- 
ing country were exposed to sale. There were the great fairs to 
Which merchants came down from London, and where the rural 
dealer laid in his annual stores of sugar, stationery, cutlery, and 
muslin. There were the shops at which the best families of the 
neighbourhood bought grocery and millinery. Some of these places 
derived dignity from interesting historical recollections, from cathe- 
drals decorated by all the art and magnificence of the middle ages, 
from palaces where a long succession of prelates had dwelt, from 
closes surrounded by the venerable abodes of dvans and canons, and 


* Fuller’s Worthies; Evelyn’s Diary, Oct. 17, 1671; Journal of T. Browne, son 
of Sir Thomas Browne, Jan. 1663-4; Blomefield’s History of Norfolk; History 
of the City and County of Norwich, 2 vols, 1768. 


q 


5 e a | 
| 2 
218 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


from castles which had in the old time repelled the Nevilles or de 
Veres, and which bore more recent traces of the vengeance of Rupert 
or of Cromwell. ; 

Conspicuous amongst these interesting cities were York, the capital 
of the north, and Exeter, the capital of the west. Neither can have 
contained much more than ten thousand inhabitants. Worcester, the 
queen of the cider land, had but eight thousand; Nottingham prob- 
ably asmany. Gloucester, renowned for that resolute defence which 
had been fatal to Charles the First, had certainly between four and 
five thousand; Derby not quite four thousand. Shrewsbury was the 
chief place of an extensive and fertile district. The Court of the 
Marches of Wales was held there. In the language of the gentry 
many miles round the Wrekin, to go to Shrewsbury was to go to 
town. The provincial wits and beauties imitated, as well as they 
could, the fashions of Saint James’s Park, in the walks along the side 
of the Severn. The inhabitants were about seven thousand.* 

The population of every one of these places has, since the Revolu- 
tion, much more than doubled. The population of some has 
multiplied sevenfold, The streets have been almost entirely rebuilt. 
Slate has succeeded to thatch, and brick to timber. The pavements 
and the lamps, the display of wealth in the principal shops, and the 
luxurious neatness of the dwellings occupied by the gentry would, in 
the seventeenth century, have seemed miraculous. et is the relative 
importance of the old capitals of counties by no means what it was. 
Younger towns, towns which are rarely or never mentioned in our 
early history and which sent no representatives to our early Parlia- 
ments, have, within the memory of persons still living, grown toa 
greatness which this generation contemplates with wonder and pride, 
not unaccompanied by awe and anxiety. 

The most eminent of these towns were indeed known in the seven 
teenth century as respectable seats of industry. Nay, their rapid 
progress and their vast opulence were then sometimes described in 
language which seems ludicrous to a man who has seen their present 
grandeur. One of the most populous and prosperous among them 
was Manchester. Manchester had been required by the Protector to 


* The population of York appears, from the return of baptisms and burials, 
in Drake’s History, to have been about 13,000 in 1730. Exeter had only 17,000 
inhabitants in 1801. The population of Worcester was numbered just before the 
siege in 1646. See Nash’s History of Worcestershire. I have made allowance 
for the increase which must be supposed to have taken place in forty years. In 
1740, the population of Nottingham was found, by enumeration, to be just 10,000, 
See Dering’s History. The population of Gloucester may readily be inferred 
from the number of houses which King found in the returns of hearth money, 
and from the number of births and burials which is given in Atkyns’s History. 
The population of Derby was 4,000 in 1712. See Wolley’s MS. History, quoted in 
Lyson’s Magna Britannia. The population of Shrewsbury was ascertained, in 
1695, by actual enumeration. As to the gaieties of Shrewsbury, see Farquhar’s 
Recruiting Officer. Farquhar’s description is borne out by a ballad in the Pepy- 
sian Library, of which the burden is ‘“‘ Shrewsbury for me.” 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 219 


send one representative to his Parliament, and was menticned by 
writers of the time of Charles the Second as a busy and opulent place. 

Cotton had, during half a century, been brought thither from Cyprus 
and Smyrna; but the manufacture was inits infancy. Whitney had 
not yet taught how the raw material might be furnished in quantities 

almost fabulous. Arkwright had not yet taught how it might be 
worked up with a speed and precision which seem magical. The 
whole annua! import did not, at the end of the seventeenth century, 
amount to two millions of pounds, a quantity which would now 
hardly supply the demand of forty-eight hours. That wonderful 
emporium, which in population and wealth far surpasses capitals so 
much renowned as Berlin, Madrid, and Lisbon, was then a mean and 
ill built market town containing under six thousand people. It then 
had not asingle press. It now supports a hundred printing establish- 
ments. It then had not a single coach. It now supports twenty 
coachmakers. * 

Leeds was already the chief seat of the woollen manufactures of 
Yorkshire; but the elderly inhabitants could still remember the time 
when the first brick house, then and long after called the Red House, 
was built, They boasted loudly of their increasing wealth, and of 
the immense sales of cloth which took place in the open air on the 

bridge. Hundreds, nay thousands of pounds, had been paid down in 
the course of one busy market day. The rising importance of Leeds 
had attracted the notice of successive governments. Charles the 
First had granted municipal privileges to the town. Oliver had in- 
vited it to send one member to the House of Commons. But from 
the returns of the hearth money it seems certain that the whole popu- 
lation of the borough, an extensive district which contains many 

hamlets, did not, in the reign of Charles the Second, exceed seven 
thousand souls. In 1841 there were more than a hundred and fifty 
thousand. + 

About a day’s journey south of Leeds, on the verge of a wild moor- 
land tract, lay an ancient manor, now rich with cultivation, then 
barren and unenclosed, which was known by the name of Hallam- 
shire. Iron abounded there; and, from a very early period, the rude 
whittles fabricated there had been sold all over the kingdom. They 
had indeed been mentioned by Geoffrey Chaucer in one of his Canter- 
bury Tales. But the manufacture appears to have made little prog- 
ress during the three centuries which followed his time. This 


* Blome’s Britannia, 1673; Aikin’s Country round Manchester; Manchester 
Directory, 1845; Baines, History of the Cotton Manufacture. The best informa- 
tion which I have been able to find, touching the popwiation of Manchester in 
the seventeenth century, is contained in a paper drawn up by the Reverend R. 
ae and published in the Journal of the Statistical Society for October 


Ake Thoresby’s Ducatus Leodensis; Whitaker’s Loidis and Elmete; Wardell’s 
Municipal History of the Borough of Leeds. (1848.) Im 1851 Leeds had 172,000 
inhabitants. (1857.) 


=) 


Be 


220 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


languor may perhaps be explained by the fact that the trade was, 
during almost the whole of this long period, subject to such regula- 
tions as the lord and bis court Jeet thought fit to impose The more 
delicate kinds of cutlery were either made in the capital or brought 
from the Continent. Indeed it was not till the reign of George the First 
that the English surgeons ceased to import from France those exquis- 
itely fine blades which are required for operations on the human 
frame. Most of the Hallamshire forges were collected in a market 
town which had sprung up near the castle of the proprietor, and 
which, in the reign of James tie First, had been a singularly miser- 
able place, containing about two thousand inhabitants, of whom a 
third were half starved and half naked beggars. It seems certain 
from the parochial registers that the population did not amount to 
four thousand at the end of the reign of Charles the Second. The 
effects of a species of toil singularly unfavourable to the health and 
vigour of the human frame were at once discerned by every traveller. 
A large proportion of the people had distorted limbs. This is that 
Sheffield which now, with its dependencies, contains a hundred and 
twenty thousand souls, and which sends forth its admirable knives, 
razors, and lancets to the farthest ends of the world.* 

Birmingham had not been thought of sufficient importance to return 
a member to Oliver’s Parliament. Yet the manufacturers of Birming: 
ham were already a busy and thriving race. ‘They boasted that their 
hardware was highly esteemed, not indeed as now, at Pekin and Lima, 
at Bokhara and Timbuctoo, but in London, and even as far off as Ire- 
land. They had acquired a less honourable renown as coiners of bad 
money. Inallusion to their spurious groats, some Tory wit had fixed 
on demagogues, who hypocritically affected zeal against Popery, the 
nickname of Birminghams. Yet in 1685 the population, which is 
now little less than two hundred thousand, did not amount to four 
thousand. Birmingham buttons were just beginning to be known: of 
Birmingham guns nobody had yet heard ; and the place whence, two 
generations later, the magnificient editions of Baskerville went forth 
to astonish all the librarians of Europe, did not contain a single regular 
shop where a Bible or an almanack could be bought. On Market 
days a bookseller named Michael Johnson, the father of the great 
Samuel Johnson, came over from Lichfield, and opened a stall dur- 
ing afew hours. This supply of literature was long found equa! to 
the demand. + 


* Hunter’s History of Hallamshire. (1848.) In 1851 the population of Sheffield 
had increased to 135,000. (1857.) 

+ Blome’s Britannia, 1973; Dugdale’s Warwickshire; North’s Examen, 321; Pref- 
ace to Absalom and Achitophel; Hutton’s History of Birmingham; Boswell’s 
Life of Johnson. In 1690 the burials at Birmingham were 150, the baptisms 125. 
I think it probable that the annual mortality was little less than one in twenty- 
five. In London it was considerably greater. <A historian of Nottingham, half 
a century later, boasted of the extraordinary salubrity of his town, where the 
annual mortality was one in thirty. See Dering’s History of Rottines (1848.) 
In 1851 the population of Birmingham had increased to 232,000. (1857.) 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 221 


‘These four chief seats of our great manufactures deserve especial 
mention. It would be tedious to enumerate all the populous and 


opulent hives of industry which, a hundred and fifty years ago, were 
hamlets without parish churches, or desolate moors, inhabited only by 
grouse and wild deer. Nor has the change been less signal in those out- 
lets by which the products of the Eng'ish looms and forges are poured 


- forth over the whole world. Atpresent Liverpool contains more than 


three hundred thousand inhabitants. The shipping registered at her 

‘port amounts to between four and five hundered thousand tons. Into 
her custom house has been repeatedly paid in one year a sum more than 
thrice as great as the whole income of the English crown in 1685 
The receipts of her post office, even since the great reduction of the 
duty, exceed the sum which the postage of the whole kingdom yielded 
to the Duke of York. Her endless docks, quays, and warehouses 
are among the wonders of the world. Yet even those docks and 
quays and warehouses seem hardly to suffice for the gigantic trade of the 
Mersey ; and already a rival city is growing fast on the opposite shore. 
In the days of Charles the Second Liverpool was described as a rising 
town which had recently made great advances, and which maintained 
a profitable intercourse with Ireland and with the sugar colonies. The 
customs had multiplied eight-fold within sixteen years, and amounted 
to what was then considered as the immense sum of fifteen thousand 
pounds annually. But the population can hardly have exceeded four 
thousand : the shipping was about fourteen hundred tons, less than 
the tonnage of a single modern Indiaman of the first class; and the 
whole number of seamen belonging to the port cannot be estimated 
at more than two hundred.* 

_ Such has been the progress of those towns where wealth is created 


_and accumulated. Not less rapid has been the progress of towns of a 


very different kind, towns in which wealth, created and accumulated 
elsewhere, is expended for purposes of health and recreation. Some 
of the most remarkable of these gay places have sprang into exist- 
ence since the time of the Stuarts. Cheltenham is now a greater city 
than any which the kingdom contained in the seventeenth century, 
London alone excepted. But in the seventeenth century, and at the 
beginning of the eighteenth, Cheltenham was mentioned by local 
historians merely as a rural parish lying under the Cotswold Hills, 
and affording good ground both for tillage and pasture. Corn grew 
_ and cattle browsed over the space nuw covered by that long succession 
of streets and villas.| Brighton was described as a place which had 
once been thriving, which had possessed many small fishing barks, 


* Blome’s Britannia; Gregson’s Antiquities of the County Palatine and Duchy 
of Lancaster, Part I1.; Petition from Liverpool in the Privy Council Book, May 
10, 1686. In 1690 the burials at Liverpool were 151, the baptisms 120. In 1844 the 

het receipt of the customs at Liverpool was 4,365,5261. Is. 8d. (1848.) In 1851 
_ Liverpool contained 375,000 inhabitants. (1857.) 
_ + Atkyns’s Gloucestershire. 


M. E. i.—8 


292) "¢- HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


and which had, when at the height of prosperity, contained above two 
thousand inhabitants, but which was sinking fast into decay. The 
sea was gradually gaining on the buildings, which at length almost 
entirely disappeared. Ninety years ago the ruins of an old fort were 
to be seen lying among the pebbles and seaweed on ihe beach ; and 
ancient men could still point out the traces of foundations on a spot 
where a street of more than a hundred huts had been swallowed up 
by the waves. So desolate was the place after this calamity, that the 
vicarage was thought scarcely worth having. A few poor fishermen, 
however, still continued to dry their nets on those cliffs, on which now 
a town, more than twice as large and populous as the Bristol of the 
Stuarts, presents, mile after mile, its gay and fantastic front to the 
sea. 

England, however, was not, in the seventeenth century, destitute 
of watering places. The gentry of Derbyshire and of the neighbour- 
ing counties repaired to Buxton, where they were lodged in low rooms 
under bare rafters, and regaled with oatcake, and with a viand which 
the hosts called mutton, but which the guests suspected to be dog. 
A single good house stood near the spring.t Tunbridge Wells, lying 
within a day’s journey of the capital, and in one of the richest and 
most highly civilised parts of the kingdom, had much greater attrac- 
tions. At present we see there a town which would, a hundred and 
sixty years ago, have ranked, in population, fourth or fifth among the 
towns of England. The brilliancy of the shops and the luxury of 
the private dwellings far surpasses anything that England could then 
show. When the court, soon after the Restoration, visited Tunbridge 
Wells, there was no town: but, within a mile of the spring, rustic 
cottages, somewhat cleaner and neater than’ the ordinary cottages 
of that time, were scattered over the heath. Some of these cabins 
were movable and’ were carried on sledges from one part of the 
common to another. To these huts men of fashion, wearied with the 
din and smoke of London, sometimes came in the summer to breathe 
fresh air, and to catch a glimpse of rural life. During the season a 
kind of fair was daily held near the fountain. The wives and 
daughters of the Kentish farmers came from the neighbouring villages 
with cream, cherries, wheatears, and quails. To chaffer with them, 
to flirt with them, to praise their straw hats and tight heels, was a” 
refreshing pastime to voluptuaries sick of the airs of actresses and 
maids of honour. Milliners, toymen, and jewellers‘came down from 
London, and opened a bazaar under the trees. In one booth the 
politician might find his coffee and the London Gazette; in another” 
were gamblers playing deep at basset; and, on fine evenings, the= 
fiddles were in attendance, and there were morris dances on the 


mi ee Britannia ; Grose’s Antiquities ; New Brighthelmstone Directory, . 
iy, e 
+ Tour in Derbyshire, by Thomas Browne, son of Sir Thomas, 7 


j 


é HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 228 
elastic turf of the bowling green. In 1685 a subscription had just 
‘been raised among those who frequented the wells for building a 
church, which the Tories, who then domineered everywhere, insisted 
on dedicating to Saint Charles the Martyr.* 
_ But at the head of the English watering places, without a rival, 
was Bath. The springs of that city had been renowned from the 
days of the Romans. It had been, during many centuries, the seat 
ofa Bishop. The sick repaired thither from every part of the realm. 
The King sometimes held his court there. Nevertheless, Bath was 
then a maze of only four or five hundred houses, crowded within an 
old wall in the vicinity of the Avon. Pictures of what were con- 
sidered as the finest of those houses are still extant, and greatly 
resemble the lowest rag shops and pothouses of Ratcliffe Highway. 
Travellers indeed complained loudly of the narrowness and meanness 
of the streets. That beautiful city which charms even eyes familiar 
with the masterpieces of Bramante and Palladio, and which the 
genius of Anstey and of Smollett, of Frances Burney and of Jane 
usten, has made classic ground, had not begun to exist. Milsom 
Street itself was an open field lying far beyond the walls; and hedge- 
rows intersected the space which is now covered by the Crescent and 
the Circus. The poor patients to whom the waters had been recom- 
mended lay on straw in a place which, to use the language of a con- 
temporary physician, was a covert rather than a lodging. As to the 
comforts and luxuries which were to be found in the interior of the 
houses of Bath by the fashionable visitors who resorted thither in 
search of health or amusement, we possess information more com- 
plete and minute than can generally be obtained on such subjects. A 
writer who published an account of that city about sixty years after 
the Revolution has accurately described the changes which had taken 
lace within his own recollection. _ He assures us that, in his younger 
ys, the gentlemen who visited the springs slept in rooms hardly as 
good as the garrets which he lived to see occupied by footmen. The 
floors of the dining rooms were uncarpeted, and were coloured brown 
with a wash made of soot and small beer, in order to hide the dirt. 
Not a wainscot was painted. Not a hearth or a chimneypiece was 
of marble. A slab of common free-stone and fire irons which had 
cost from three to four shillings were thought sufficient for any fire- 
place. The best apartments were hung with coarse woollen stuff, and 
were furnished with rushbottomed chairs. Readers who take an 
interest in the progress of civilisation and of the useful arts will be 
grateful to the humble topographer who has recorded these facts, and 
will perhaps wish that historians of far higher pretensions had some- 
times spared a few pages from military evolutions and political 


* Mémoires de Grammont; Hasted’s History of Kent; Tunbridge Wells, a 
woe ton Causton’s Tunbridgialia, 1688; Metellus, a poem on Tunbridge 


p& 
= its 
i 
v. 
ar 


224 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


intrigues, for the purpose of letting us know how the parlours and 
bedchambers of our ancestors looked.* ae 
The position of London, relatively to the other towns of the empire, 
was, in the time of Charles the Second, far higher than at present. 
For at present the population of London is little more than six times 
the population of Manchester or of Liverpool. In the days of 
Charles the Second the population of London was more than seven- 
teen times the population of Bristol or of Norwich. It may be 
doubted whether any other instance can be mentioned of a great king- 
dom in which the first city was more than seventeen times as large as 
the second. There is reason to believe that, in 1685, London had 
been, during about half a century, the most populous capital in 
Europe. The inhabitants, who are now at least nineteen hundred 
thousand, were then probably little more than half a million.+ Lon- 
don had in the world only one commercial rival, now long ago out- 
stripped, the mighty and opulent Amsterdam. English writers 
boasted of the forest of masts and yardarms which covered the river 
from the Bridge to the Tower, and of the stupendous sums which 
were collected at the Custom Ilouse in Thames Street. 'There is, 
indeed, no doubt that the trade of the metropolis then bore a far 
greater proportion than at present to the whole trade of the country; 
yet to our generation the honest vaunting of our ancestors must 
appear almost ludicrous. The shipping which they thought in- 
credibly great appears not to have exceeded seventy thousand tons. 
This was, indeed, then more than a third of the whole tonnage of 
the kingdom, but is now less than a fourth of the tonnage of New- 
castle, and is nearly equalled by the tonnage of the steam vessels of 
the Thames. The customs of London amounted, in 1685, to about 
three hundred and thirty thousand pounds a year. In our time the 
net duty paid annually, at the same place, exceeds ten millions. t 
Whoever examines the maps of London which were published 
towards the close of the reign of Charles the Second will see that 
only the nucleus of .the present capital then existed. The town did 
not, as now, fade by imperceptible degrees into the country. No 
long avenues of villas, embowered in lilacs and laburnums, extended 


* See Wood’s History of Bath, 1749; Evelyn’s Diary, June 27, 1654; Pepys’s 
Diary, June 12, 1668; Stukeley’s Itinerarium Curiosum; Collinson’s Somerset- 
shire; lr. Peirce’s History and Memoirs of the Bath, 1713, Book I. chap. viii. 
obs. 2, 1684. I have consulted several old maps and pictures of Bath, particu- 
larly one curious map which is surrounded by views of the principal buildings. 
It bears the date of 1717. 

+ According to King 530,000. (1848.) In 1851 the population of London ex- 
ceeded, 2,300,000. (1857.) 

¢ Macpherson’s History of Commerce; Chalmers’s Estimate; Chamberlayne’s 
State of England, 1684. The tonnage of the steamers belonging to the port, of 
London was, at the end of 1847, about 60,000 tons. The customs of the port, from 
1842 to 1845, very nearly averaged 11,000,0002. (1848.) In 1854 the tonnage of the 
steamers of the port of London amounted to 138,000 tons, without reckoning 
vessels of less than fifty tons. (1857.) ad 


\ 
ine, te 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 225 
from the great centre of wealth and civilisation almost to the boun- 
daries of Middlesex and far into the heart of Kent and Surrey. In 
the east, no part of the immense line of warehouses and artificial 
lakes which now stretches from the Tower to Blackwall had even 
been projected. On the west, scarcely one of those stately piles of 
building which are inhabited by the noble and wealthy was in exist- 
ence; and Chelsea, which is now peopled by more than forty thou- 
sand human beings, was a quiet country village with about a thou- 
sand inhabitants.* On the north, cattle fed, and sportsmen wandered 
with dogs and guns, over the site of the borough of Marylebone, and 
over far the greater part of the space now covered by the boroughs 
of Finsbury and of the Tower Hamlets. Islington was almost a soli- 
tude; and poets loved to contrast its silence and repose with the din 
and turmoil of the monster London.+ On the south the capital is 
now connected with its suburb by several bridges, not inferior in 
magnificence and solidity to the noblest works of the Cesars. In 
1685, a single line of irregular arches, overhung by piles of mean and 
crazy houses, and garnished, after a fashion worthy of the naked bar- 
barians of Dahomy, with scores of mouldering heads, impeded the 
navigation of the river. 

Of the metropolis, the City, properly so called, was the most im- 
portant division. At the timeof the Restoration it had been built, 
for the most part, of wood and plaster; the few bricks that were 
used were ill baked; the booths where goods were exposed to sale 
projected far into the streets, and were overhung by the upper 
stories. A few specimens of this architecture may still be seen in 
those districts which were not reached by the great fire. That fire 
had, in a few days, covered a space of little less than a square mile 
with the ruins of eighty-nine churches and of thirteen thousand 
houses. But the City had risen again with a celerity which had ex 
cited the admiration of neighbouring countries. Unfortunately, the 
old lines of the streets had been to a great extent preserved: and 
those lines, originally traced in an age when even princesses per- 
formed their journeys on horseback, were often too narrow to allow 
wheeled carriages to pass each other with ease, and were therefore ill 
adapted for the residence of wealthy persons in an age when a coach 
and six was a fashionable luxury. , The style of building was, how- ~ 
ever, far superior to that of the City which had perished. The ordi- 
nary material was brick, of much better quality than had formerly 
been used. On the sites of the ancient parish churches had arisen a 
multitude of new domes, towers, and spires which bore the mark of 
the fertile genius of Wren. In every place save one the traces of the 
great devastation had been completely effaced. But the crowds of 


_,* Lyson’s Environs of London. The baptisms at Chelsea, between 1680 and 
690, were only 42 a year. 
t Cowley, Discourse of Solitude. 


“> . 


22° HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


workmen, the scaffolds, and the masses of hewn stone were still to 
be seen where the noblest of Protestant temples was slowly rising on 
the ruins of the Old Cathedral of Saint Paul.* 

The whole character of the City has, since that time, undergone a 
complete change. At present the bankers, the merchants, and the 
chief shopkeepers repair thither on six mornings of every week for 
the transaction of business; but they reside in other quarters of the 
metropolis, or at suburban country seats surrounded by shrubberies 
and flower gardens. This revolution in private habits has produced 
a political revolution of no small importance. The City is no longer | 
regarded by the wealthiest traders with that attachment which every 
man naturally feels for his home. It is no longer associated in their 
minds with domestic affections and endearments. The fireside, the 
nursery, the social table, the quiet bed are not there. Lombard Street 
and Threadneedle Street are merely places where men toil and accu- 
mulate. They go elsewhere to enjoy and to expend. On a Sunday, 
or in an evening after the hours of business, some courts and alleys, 
which a few hours before had been alive with hurrying feet and anx- 
ious faces, are as silent as the glades of a forest. The chiefs of the 
mercantile interest are no longer citizens. They avoid, they almost 
contemn, municipal honours and duties. Those honours and duties 
are abandoned to men who, though useful and highly respectable, — 
seldom belong to the princely commercial houses of which the names 
are renowned throughout the world. 

In the seventeenth century the City was the merchant’s residence. 
Those mansions of the great old burghers which still exist have been 
turned into counting houses and warehouses: but it is evident that 
they were originally not inferior in magnificence to the dwellings” 
which were then inhabited by the nobility. They sometimes stand 
in retired and gloomy courts, and are accessible only by inconvenient 
passages: but their dimensions are ample, and their aspect stately. 
The entrances are decorated with richly carved pillars and canopies, 
The staircases and landing places are not wanting in grandeur. The 
floors are sometimes of wood tessellated after the fashion of France. 
The palace of Sir Robert Clayton, in the Old Jewry, contained a 
superb banqueting room wainscoted with cedar, and adorned with 
battles of gods and giants in fresco.+ Sir Dudley North expended 
four thousand pounds, a sum which would then have been important 
to a Duke, on the rich furniture of his reception rooms in Basinghall 


*The fullest and most trustworthy information about the state of the build- — 
ings of London at this time is to be derived from the maps and drawings in the — 
British Museum and in the Pepysian Library. The badness of the bricks in the 
old buildings of London is particularly mentioned in the Travels of the Grand — 
Duke Cosmo. There is an account of the works at Saint Paul’s in Ward’s Lon-— 
don Spy. lam almost ashamed to quote such nauseous balderdash; but I have + 
been forced to descend even lower, if possible, in search of materials, ¥ 


+ Evelyn’s Diary, Sept. 20, 1672, 


- 


es HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 987 


 Street.* In such abodes, under the last Stuarts, the heads of the 
_ great firms lived splendidly and hospitably. To their dwelling place 
‘they were bound by the strongest ties of interest and affection. 
There they had passed their youth, had made their friendships, had 
‘courted their wives, nad seen their children grow up, had laid the re- 
_ mains of their parents in the earth, and expected that their own re- 
mains would be laid. That intense patriotism which is peculiar to the 
members of societies congregated within a narrow space was, in such 
circumstances, strongly developed.. London was, to the Londoner, 
‘what Athens was to the Athenian of the age of Pericles, what Flor- 
ence was to the Florentine of the fifteenth century. The citizen was 
proud of the grandeur of his city, punctilious about her claims to 
respect, ambitious of her offices, and zealous for her franchises. 
__ At the close of the reign of Charles the Second the pride of the 
Londoners was smarting from a cruel mortification. The old charter 
had been taken away; and the magistracy had been remodelled. All 
the civic functionaries were Tories: and the Whigs, though in num- 
bers and in wealth superior to their opponents, found themselves ex- 
cluded from every local dignity. Nevertheless, the external splendour 
of the municipal government was not diminished, nay, was rather in- 
creased by this change. For, under the administration of some 
_ Puritans who had lately borne rule, the ancient fame of the City for 
good cheer had declined: but under the new magistrates, who be- 
longed to a more festive party, and at whose boards guests of rank 
, and fashion from beyond Temple Bar were often seen, the Guildhall 
and the halls of the great companies were enlivened by many sump- 
fuous banquets. During these repasts, odes composed by the poet 
laureate of the corporation, in praise of the King, the Duke, and the 
Mayor, were sung to music. The drinking was deep and the shout- 
ing loud. An observant Tory, who had often shared in these revels, 
has remarked that the practice of huzzaing after drinking healths 
dates from this joyous period.+ | 
The magnificence displayed by the first civic magistrate was al- 
mostregal. The gilded coach, indeed, which isnow annually admired 
by the crowd, was not yet a part of his state. On great occasions he 
appeared on horseback, attended by a long cavalcade inferior in 
magnificence only to that which, before a coronation, escorted the 
_ Sovereign from the Tower to Westminster. The Lord Mayor was 
never seen in public without his rich robe, his hood of black velvet, 
his gold chain, his jewel, and a great attendance of harbingers and 
guards.{ Nor did the world find anything ludicrous in the pomp 


* Roger North’s Life of Sir Dudley North. 
t+ North’s Examen. This amusing writer has preserved a specimen of the sub- 
lime raptures in which the Pindar of the City indulged: — 
“The worshipful Sir John Moor! 
After age that name adore!” 
¢ Chamberlayne’s State of England, 1684; Anglize Metropolis, 1690; Seymour's 
London, 1734, eae ia i 


228 . HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


ae 
which constantly surrounded him. For it was not moré than became - 
the place which, as wielding the strength and representing the dignity 
of the City of London, he was entitled to occupy in the State. That 
City, being then not only without equal in the country, but without 
second, had, during five and forty years, exercised almost as great an 
influence. on the politics of England as Paris has, in our own time, 
ex: rcised on the politics of France. In intelligence London was 
greatly in advance of every other part of the kingdom. A govern- 
ment, supported and trusted by London, could in a day obtain such 
pecuniary means as it would have taken months to collect from the 
rest of the island. Nor were the military resources of the capital to | 
be despised. The power which the Lord Lieutenants exercised in_ 
other parts of the kingdom was in Loraon entrusted to a Commission 
of eminent citizens. Under the order of this Commission were twelve 
regiments of foot and two regiments of horse. An army of drapers’ 
apprentices and journeymen tailors, with common councilmen for 
captains and aldermen for colonels, might not indeed have been able 
to stand its ground against regular troops; but there were then very 
few regular troops in the kingdom. A town, therefore, which could 
send forth, at an hour’s notice, thousands of men, abounding in natural 
courage, provided with tolerable weapons, and not altogether untinc- 
tured with martial discipline, could not but be a valuable ally and a 
formidable enemy. It was not forgotten that Hampden and Pym had 
been protected from lawless tyranny by the London trainbands; that, 
in the great crisis of the civil war, the London trainbands had 
marched to raise the siege of Gloucester; or that, in the movement — 
against the military tyrants which followed the downfall of hKichard 
Cromwell, the London trainbands had borne a signal part. In truth, it~ 
isno exaggeration to say that, but for the hostility of the City, Charles 
the First would never have been vanquished, and that, without the — 
help of the City, Charles the Second could scarcely have been restored. 
hese considerations may serve to explain why, in spite of that at- 
traction which had, during a long course of years, gradually drawn the 
aristocracy westward, a few men of high rank had continued, till a 
very recent period, to dwell in the vicinity of the Exchange and of the 
Guildhall. Shaftesbury and Buckingham, while engaged in bitter 
and unscrupulous opposition to the government. had thought that 
they could nowhere carry on their intrigues so conveniently or so 
securely as under the protection of the City magistrates and the City 
militia. Shaftesbury had therefore lived in Aldersgate Street, at a 
house which may still be easily known by pilasters and wreaths, the 
graceful work of Inigo. Buckingham had ordered his mansion near 
Charing Cross, once the abode of the Archbishops of York, to be 
pulled down; and, while streets and alleys which are still named after ~ 
him were rising on that site, chose to reside in Dowgate.* 7 


rik North’s Examen, 116; Wood, Ath. Ox. Shaftesbury: The Duke of B.'s 
itany. 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 229 


_ These, however, were rareexceptions. Almost all the noble families 
of England had long migrated beyond the walls. The district where 
most of their town houses stood lies between the city and the regions 
which are now considered as fashionable. A few great men still re- 
tained their hereditary hotels in the Strand. The stately dwellings 
on the south and west of Lincoln’s Inn Fields, the Piazza of Covent 
Garden, Southampton Square, which is now called Bloomsbury 
Square, and King’s Square in Soho Fields, which is now called Soho 
Square, were among the favourite spots. Foreign princes were carried 
to see Bloomsbury Square, as one of the wonders of England.* Soho 
Square, which had just been built, was to our ancestors a subject of 
pride with which their posterity will hardly sympathise. Monmouth 
Square had been the name while the fortunes of the Duke of Mon- 
mouth flourished; and on the southern side towered his mansion. 
The front, though ungraceful, was lofty and richly adorned. The 
walls of the principal apartments were finely sculptured with fruit, 
foliage, and armorial bearings, and were hung with embroidered 
satin.t Every trace of this magnificence has long disappeared; and 
no aristocratical mansion is to be found in that once aristocratical 
quarter, A little way north from Holborn, and on the verge of the 
pastures and corn-fields, rose two celebrated palaces, each with an 
ample garden. One of them, then called Southampton House, and 
_ subsequently Bedford House, was removed about fifty years ago to 
make room for a new city, which now covers with its squares, streets, 
and churches, a vast area, renowned in the seventeenth century for 
peaches and snipes. The other, Montague House, celebrated for its 
frescoes and furniture, was, a few months after the death of Charles 
the Second, burned to the ground, and was speedily succeeded by a 
more magnificent Montague House, which, having been long the re- 
pository of such various and precious treasures of art, science, and 
learning as were scarcely ever before assembled under a single roof, 
has now given place to an edifice more magnificent still.t 
Nearer to the Court, 01a space called St. James’s Fields, had just 
been built St. James’s Square and Jermyn Street. St. James’s Church 
had recently been opened for the accommodation of the inhabitants 
of this new quarter.§ Golden Square, which was in the next gener- 
ation inhabited by lords and ministers of state, had not yet been be- 
gun. Indeed the only dwellings to be seen on the north of Piccadilly 
_ were three or four isolated and almost rural mansions, of which the 
most celebrated was the costly pile erected by Clarendon, and nick- 
named Dunkirk House. It had been purchased after its founder’s 


* Travels of the Grand Duke Cosmo. 
___ t+ Chamberilayne’s State of England, 1684; Pennant’s London; Smith’s Life of 
Nollekens. 
_ ¥ Evelyn’s Diary, Oct. 10, 1683, Jan. 19, 1685-6. 
§ Stat. 1 Jac. I. c, 22; Evelyn’s Diary, Dec. 7, 1684. 


ee 
“se 
fat 
> 


\ e- < 


200 fen HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


downfall by the Duke of Albemarle. The Clarendon Hotel and Albe- 
marle Street still preserve the memoey of the site. ae 

He who then rambled to what is now the gayest and most crowded 
part of Regent Street found himself in a solitude, and was sometimes 
so fortunate as to have a shot at a woodcock.* On the north the Ox- 
ford road ran between hedges. Three or four hundred yards to the 
south were the garden walls of a few great houses which were con- 
sidered as quite out of town. On the west was a meadow renowned 
for aspring from which, long afterwards, Conduit Street was named. 
On the east was a field not to be passed without a shudder by any 
Londoner of that age. There, as in a place far from the haunts of — 
men, had been dug, twenty years before, when the great plague was 
raging, a pit into which the dead carts had nightly shot corpses by 
scores. It was popularly believed that the earth was deeply tainted 
with infection, and could not be disturbed without imminent risk to 
human life. No foundations were laid there tilltwo generations had 
passed without any return of the pestilence, and till the ghastly spot 
had long been surrounded by buildings.+ 

We should greatly err if we were to suppose that any of the streets 
and squares then bore the same aspect as at present. The great 
majority of the houses, indeed, have, since that time, been wholly, 
or in great part, rebuilt. If the most fashionable parts of the 
capital could be placed before us such as they then were, we should 
be disgusted by their squalid appearance, and poisoned by their noi- 
some atmosphere. 

In Covent Garden a filthy and noisy market was held close to the 
dwellings of the great. Fruit women screamed, carters fought, cab- 
bage stalks and rotten apples accumulated in heaps at the thresholds 
of the Countess of Berkshire and of the Bishop of Durham.t 

The centre ot Lincoln’s Inn Fields was an open space where the 
rabble congregated every evening, within a few yards of Cardigan 
House and Winchester House, to hear mountebanks harangue, to see 
bears dance, and to set dogs at oxen. Rubbish was shot in every 
part of the area. Horses were exercised there. The beggars were 
as noisy and importunate as in the worst governed cities of the Con- 
tinent. A Lincoln’s Inn mumper was a proverb. The whole frater- 
nity knew the arms and liveries of every charitably disposed grandee 
in.the neighbourhood, and as soon as his lordship’s coach and six 
appeared, came hopping and crawling in crowds to persecute him. 


* Old General Oglethorpe, who died in 1785, used to boast that he had shot 
birdshere in Anne’s reign. See Pennant’s London, and the Gentleman’s Maga- 
zine for July, 1785. el 

+ The pest field willbs seen in maps of London as late asthe end of George 
the First's reign. 24 

t See a very curious plan of Covent Garden made about 1690, and engraved 
for Smith’s History of Westminster. See also Hogarth’s Morning, painted while 
some of the houses in the Piazza were still occupied by people of fashion. 


' 


Mr 


-' 


> 
% 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 231 


These disorders lasted, in spite of many accidents, and of some legal 
proceedings, till, in the reign of George the Second, Sir Joseph 


_ Jekyll, Master of the Rolls, was knocked down and nearly killed in 


the middle of the Square. Then at length palisades were set up, and 
a pleasant garden laid out.* 

_ Saint James’s Square was a receptacle for all the offal and cinders, for 
all the dead cats and dead dogs of Westminster. At one time a cudgel 
player kept the ring there. At another time an impudent squatter 
settled himself there, and built a shed for rubbish under the windows 
of the gilded saloons in which the first magnates of the realm, Nor- 
folk, Ormond, Kent, and Pembroke, gave banquets and balls. It 
was not till these nuisances had lasted through a whole generation, 
and till much had been written about them, that the inhabitants 
applied to Parliament for permission to put up rails, and to plant 
trees. 

Wien such was the state of the region inhabited by the most luxu- 
rious portion of society, we may easily believe that the great body of 
the population suffered what would now be considered as insupport- 


able grievances. The pavement was detestable: all foreigners cried 


shame upon it. The drainage was so bad that in rainy weather the 
gutters soon became torrents. Several facetious poets have com- 
memorated the fury with which these black rivulets roared down 
Snow Hill and Ludgate Hill, bearing to Fleet Ditch a vast tribute of 
animal and vegetable filth from the stalls of butchers and green- 
grocers. This flood was profusely thrown to right and left by 
coaches and carts. To keep as far from the carriage road as possible 


was therefore the wish of every pedestrian. The mild and timid 
_ gave the wall. The bold and athletic took it. . If two roisterers met, 


they cocked their hats in each other’s faces, and pushed each other 


about till the weaker was shoved towards the kennel. If he wasa 


mere bully he sneaked off, muttering that he should find atime. If 


_he was pugnacious, the encounter probably ended in a duel behind 


Montague House. t 


* London Spy; Tom Brown’s comical View of London and Westminster; Tur- 
ner’s Propositions for the employing of the Poor, 1678; Daily Courant and Daily 


Journal of June 7, 1733; Case of Michael v. Allestree, in 1676, 2 Levinz, p. 172. 


Michael had been run over by two horses which Allestree was breaking in Lin- 


__. €oln’s Inn Fields. The declaration set forth that the defendant ‘‘ porta deux 


chivals ungovernable en un coach, et improvide, incaute, et absque debita con- 
sideratione ineptitudinis loci la eux drive pur eux faire tractable et apt pur un 
coach, quels chivals, pur ceo que, per leur ferocite, ne poient estre rule, curre 
sur le plaintiff et le noie.”’ 

t Stat. 12 Geo. I. c. 25; Commons’ Journals, Feb. 25, March 2, 1725-6; London 
Gardener, 1712; Evening Post, March, 23, 1731. I have not been able to find this 
number of the Evening Post; I therefore quote it on the faith of Mr. Malcolm, 


_ who mentions it in his History of London. 


¢ Lettres sur les Anglois, written early in the reign of William the Third; 


_ $wift’s City Shower; Gay’s Trivia. Johnson used to relate a curious conversa 


. 


tion which he had with his mother about giving and taking the wall. 


232 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


The houses were not numbered. There would indeed have been 
little advantage in numbering them; for of the coachmen, chairmen, 
porters, and errand boys of London, a very small proportion could 
read. It was necessary to use marks which the most ignorant could 
understand. ‘The shops were therefore distinguished by painted or 
sculptured signs, which gave a gay and grotesque aspect to the 
streets. The walk from Charing Cross to Whitechapel lay through 
an endless succession of Saracens’ Heads, Royal Oaks, Blue Bears, 
and Golden Lambs, which disappeared when they were no longer 
required for the direction of the common people. 

When the evening closed in, the difficulty and danger of walking 
about London became serious indeed. The garret windows were 
opened, and pails were emptied, with little regard to those who were 
passing below. Falls, bruises and broken bones were of constant 
occurrence. For, till the last year of the reign of Charles the Second, 
most of the streets were left in profound darkness. Thieves and 
robbers plied their trade with impunity: yet they were hardly so 
terrible to peaceable citizens as another class of ruffians. It was a 
favourite amusement of dissolute young gentlemen to swagger by 
night about the town, breaking windows, upsetting sedans, beating 
quiet men, and offering rude caresses to pretty women. Several 
dynasties of these tyrants had, since the Restoration, domineered 
over the streets. The Muns and Tityre Tus had given place to the 
Hectors, and the Hectors had been recently succeeded by the Scour- | 
ers. Ata later period arose the Nicker, the Hawcubite, and the yet 
more dreaded name of Mohawk.* The machinery for keeping the 
peace was utterly contemptible. There was an Act of Common 
Council which provided that more than a thousand watchmen should 
be constantly on the alert in the city, from sunset to sunrise, and that 
every inhabitant should take his turn of duty. But this Act was 
negligently executed. Few of those who were summoned left their 
homes; and those few generally found it more agreeable to tipple in 
alehouses than to pace the streets. + 

It ought to be noticed that, in the last year of the reign of Charles 
the Second, began a great change in the police of London, a change 
which has perhaps added as much to the happiness of the body of 


* Oldham’s Imitation of the 3d Satire of Juvenal, 1682; Shadwell’s Scourers, 
1690. Many other authorities will readily occur to all who are acquainted with 
the popular literature of that and the succeeding generation. It may be sus- 
pected that some of the Tityre Tus, like good Cavaliers, broke Milton’s windows 
shortly after the Restoration. I am confident that he was thinking of those 
pests of London when he dictated the noble lines:— 

‘** And in luxurious cities, when the noise 
Of riot ascends above their loftiest towers, 
And injury and outrage, and when night 
Darkens the streets, then wander forth the sons 
Of Belial, fown with insolence and wine.” 
+ Seymour’s London. 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 283 


the people as revolutions of much greater fame. An ingenious pro- 


jector, named Edward Heming, obtained letters patent conveying to 
him, for a term of years, the exclusive right of lighting up London. 
He undertook, for a moderate consideration, to place a light before 
every tenth door, on moonless nights, from Michaelmas to Lady Day, 
and from six to twelve of the clock. Those who now see the capital 
all the year round, from dusk to dawn, blazing with a splendour 
beside which the illuminations for La Hogue and Blenheim would 
have looked pale, may perhaps smile to think of Heming’s lanterns, 
which glimmered feebly before one house in ten during a small part 
of one night in three. But such was not the feeling of his contem- 
poraries. His scheme was enthusiastically applauded, and furiously 
attacked. The friends of improvement extolled him as the greatest 
of all the benefactors of his city. What, they asked, were the 
boasted inventions of Archimedes, when compared with the achieve- 
ment of the man who had turned the nocturnal shades into noon- 
day? In spite of these eloquent eulogies the cause of darkness was 
not left undefended. ‘There were fools in that age who opposed the 
introduction of what was called the new light as strenuously as fools 
in our age have opposed the introduction of vaccination and rail- 
roads, as strenuously as the fools of an age anterior to the dawn of 
history doubtless opposed the introduction of the plough and of 
alphabetical writing. Many years after the date of Heming’s patent 
there were extensive districts in which no lamp was scen.* 

We may easily imagine what, in such times, must have been the 
state of the quarters of London which were peopled by the outcasts’ 
of society. Among those quarters one had attained a scandalous 
preeminence. On the confines of the City and the Temple had been 
founded, in the thirteenth century, a House of Carmelite Friars, 
distinguished by their white hoods. The precinct of this house had, 
before the Reformation, been a sanctuary for criminals, and stiil 
retained the privilege of protecting debtors from arrest. Insolvents 
consequently were to be found in every dwelling, from cellar to 
garret. Of these a large proportion were knaves and libertines, and 
were followed to their asylum by women more abandoned than them- 
selves. The civil power was unable to keep order in a district swarm- 
ing with such inhabitants; and thus Whitefriars became the favour- 
ite resort of all who wished to be emancipated from the restraints of 
the law. Though the immunities legally belonging to the place ex- 
tended only to cases of debt, cheats, false witnesses, forgers, and 
highwaymen found refuge there. For amidst a rabble so desperate 
no peace officer’s life was in safety. At the cry of ‘‘ Rescue,” bullies 
with swords and cudgels, and termagant hags with spits and broom- 
sticks, poured forth by hundreds; and the intruder was fortunate if 


* ai Metropolis, 1690, Sect. 17, entitled, ‘Of the new lights’; Seymour’s 
on. 


vg 


y m4: 
ae 
i 


234 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


# 


he escaped back into Fleet Street, hustled, stripped, and pumped — 


upon. Even the warrant of the Chief Justice of England could not 
be executed without the help of a company of musketeers. Such 
relics of the barbarism of the darkest ages were to be found within 
a short walk of the chambers where Somers was studying history 
and law, of the chapel where Tillotson was preaching, of the coffee 
house where Dryden was passing judgment on poems and plays, and 
of the hall where the Royal Society was examining the astronomical 
system of Isaac Newton.* 

Each of the two cities which made up the capital of England had 
its own centre of attraction. In the metropolis of commerce the 
point of convergence was the Exchange; in the metropolis of fashion 


the Palace. But the Palace did not retain its influence so long as the 


Exchange. The Revolution completely altered the relations between 
the Court and the higher classes of society. It was by degrees dis- 


covered that the King, in his individual capacity, had very little to © 


give; that coronets and garters, bishoprics and embassies, lordships 
of the Treasury and tellerships of the Exchequer, nay, even charges 
in the royal stud and bedchamber, were really bestowed, not by him, 


but by his advisers. Every ambitious and covetous man perceived — 


that he would consult his own interest far better by acquiring the 
dominion of a Cornish borough, and by rendering good service to the 
ministry during a critical session, than by becoming the companion, 
or even the minion, of his prince. It was therefore in the antechambers, 


not of George the First and of George the Second, but of Walpole 


and of Pelham, that the daily crowd of courtiers was to be found. It 
is also to be remarked that the same Revolution, which made it im- 
possible that our Kings should use the patronage of the state merely 
for the purpose of gratifying their personal predilections, gave us 


several Kings unfitted by their education and habits to be gracious 


and affable hosts. 'They had been born and bred on the Continent. 
They never felt themselves at home in our island. If they spoke our 


language, they spoke it inelegantly and with effort. Our national — 


character they never fully understood. Our national manners they 
hardly attempted to acquire. The most important part of their duty 
they performed better than any ruler who preceded them: for they 


governed strictly according to law: but they could not be the first 
gentlemen of the realm, the heads of polite society. If ever they un- — 


bent, it was in a very small circle where hardly an English face was 


to be seen; and they were never so happy as when they could escape — 


for a summer to their native land. They had indeed their days of 


reception for our nobility and ‘gentry; but the reception was a mere — 


matter of form, and became.at last as solemn a ceremony as a funeral. 


Not such was the court of Charles the Second. Whitehall, when — 


—— 


* Stowe’s Survey of London, Shadwell’s Squire of Alsatia; Ward’s London 
Spy; Stas. 8 & 9 Gul, HI. cap. 27 


# 


“ay 


a 


. 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 235 
he dwelt there, was the focus of political intrigue and of fashionable 
gaiety. Half the jobbing and half the flirting of the metropolis went 

on under his roof. Whoever could make himself agreeable to the 
prince, or could secure the good offices of the mistress, might hope to 
‘rise in the world without rendering any service to the government, 
Without being even known by sight to any minister of state. This 
courtier got a frigate, and that a company; a third, the pardon of a 
rich offender; a fourth, a lease of crown land on easy terms. If the 
King notified his pleasure that a briefless lawyer should be made a 
judge, or that a libertine baronet should be made a peer, the gravest 
counsellors, after alittle murmuring, submitted.* Interest, therefore, 
drew a constant press of suitors to the gates of the palace; and those 
gates always stood wide. The King kept open house every day, and 
all day long, for the good society of London, the extreme Whigs only 
excepted. Hardly any gentleman had any difficulty in making his 
way to the royal presence. The levee was exactly what the word 
imports. Some men of quality came every morning to stand round 
their master, to chat with him while his wig was combed and his 
cravat tied, and to accompany him in his early walk through the 
Park. All persons who had been properly introduced might, with- 
‘out any special invitation, go to see him dine, sup, dance, and play at 
hazard, and might have the pleasure of hearing him tell stories, which 
indeed he told remarkably well, about his flight from Worcester, and 

_ about the misery which he had endured when he was a state prisoner 
in the hands of the canting meddling preachers of Scotland. By- 

 standers whom His Majesty recognised often came in for a courteous 

word. This proved a far more successful kingcraft than any that his 
father or grandfather had practised. It was not easy for the most 
austere republican of the school of Marvel to resist the fascination of 
so much good humour and affability; and many a veteran Cavalier, 
in whose heart the remembrance of unrequited sacrifices and ser- 
vices had been festering during twenty years, was compensated in one 
moment for wounds and sequestrations by his sovereign’s kind nod, 
and “‘ God bless you, my old friend!” 
Whitehall naturally became the chief staple of news. Whenever 
there was a rumour that anything important had happened or was 
about to happen, people hastened thither to obtain intelligence from 
the fountain head. The galleries presented the appearance of a 
modern club room at an anxious time. They were full of people en- 
quiring whether the Dutch mail was in, what tidings the express 
from France had brought, whether John Sobiesky had beaten the 

Turks, whether the Doge of Genoa was really at Paris. These were 

matters about which it was safe to talk aloud. But there were sub- 


* See Sir Roger North’s account of the way in which Wright was made a judge, 
be Clarendon’s account of the way in which Sir George Savile was made 


oF = - 


« 
= 


236 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


jects concerning which information was asked and given in whispers, 
Had Halifax got the better of Rochester? Was there to be a Parlia- 

ment? Was the Duke of York really going to Scotland? Had Mon- 

mouth really been summoned from the Hague? Men tried to read 

the countenance of every minister as he went through the throng to 

and from the royal closet. All sorts of auguries were drawn from 

the tone in which His Majesty spoke to the Lord President, or from 

the laugh with which His Majesty honoured a jest of the Lord Privy 

Seal; and in a few hours the hopes and fear inspired by such slight 

indications had spread to all the coffee houses from Saint James's to 
the Tower.* 

The coffee house must not be dismissed with a cursory mention. 
It might indeed at that time have been not improperly called a most 
important political institution. No Parliament had sat for years. 
The municipal council of the City had ceased to speak the sense of 
the citizens Public meetings, harangues, resolutions, and the rest of 
the modern machinery of agitation had not yet come into fashion. 
Nothing resembling the modern newspaper existed. In such circum- 
stances the coffee houses were the chief organs through which the 
public opinion of the metropolis vented itself. 

The first of these establishments had been set up by a Turkey mer: 
chant, who had acquired among the Mahometans a taste for their 
favourite beverage. The convenience of being able to make appoint- 
ments in any part of the town, and of being able to pass evenings 
socially at avery small charge, was so great that the fashion spread 
fast. Every man of the upper or middle class went daily to his 
coffee house to learn the news and to discuss it. Every coffee house 
had one or more orators to whose eloquence the crowd listened with 
admiration, and who soon became, what the journalists of our time 
have been called, a fourth Estate of the realm. The Court had long 
seen with uneasiness the growth of this new power in the state. An 
attempt had been made, during Danby’s administration, to close the 
coffee houses. But men of all parties missed their usual places of re- 
sort so much that there was an universal outcry. ‘The government 
did not venture, in opposition to a feeling so strong and general, to 
enforce a regulation of which the legality might well be questioned. 
Since that time ten years had elapsed, and during those years the 
number and influence of the coffee houses had been constantly in- 
creasing. Foreigners remarked that the coffee house was that which 
especially distinguished London from all other cities; that the coffee 
house was the Londoner’s home, and that those who wished to find @ 
gentleman commonly asked, not whether he lived in Fleet Street or 


— 


* The sources from which I have drawn my information about the state of 
the Court are too numerous to recapitulate. Among them are the Despatches 
of Barillon, Van Citters, hg ear and Adda, the Travels of the Grand Duke 
Cosmo, the works of Roger North, the Diaries of Pepys, Evelyn, and Teonge. 
and the Memoirs of Grammont and Reresby. 2 

a 


- 


a 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 237 


Chancery Lane, but whether he frequented the Grecian or the Rain- 
bow. Rekedy was excluded from these places who laid down his 
penny at the bar. Yet every rank and profession, and every shade 
of religion and political opinion, had its own head quarters. There 
were houses near Saint James’s Park where fops congregated, their 
heads and shoulders covered with black or flaxen wigs, not less ample 
than those which are now worn by the Chancellor and by the Speak- 
er of the House of Commons. The wig came from Paris and so did 
the rest of the fine gentleman’s ornaments, his embroidered coat, his 
fringed gloves, and the tassel which upheld his pantaloons. The 
conversation was in that dialect which, long after it had ceased to be 
spoken in fashionable circles, continued, in the mouth of Lord Fop- 
pington, to excite the mirth of theatres.* The atmosphere was like 
that of a perfumer’s shop. Tobacco in any other form than that of 
richly scented snuff was held in abomination. If any clown, ignorant 
of the usages of the house, called for a pipe, the sneers of the whole 
assembly and the short answers of the waiters soon convinced him 
that he had better go somewhere else. Nor, indeed, would he have 
had far to go. For, in general the coffee rooms reeked with tobucco ~ 
like a guard room: and strangers sometimes expressed their surprise 
that so many people should leave their own firesides to sit in the 
midst of eternal fog and stench. Nowhere was the smoking more 
consiant than at Will’s. That celebrated house, situated between 
Covent Garden and Bow Street, was sacred to polite letters. There 
the talk was about poetical justice and the unities of place and time. 
There was a faction for Perrault and the moderns, a faction for 
Boileau and the ancients. One group debated whether Paradise Lost 
ought not to have been inrhyme. To another an envious poetaster 
demonstrated that Venice Preserved ought to have been hooted from 
the stage. Under no roof was a greater varicty of figures to be seen, 
There were Earls in stars and garters, clergymen in cassocks and 
bands, pert Templars, sheepish lads from the Universities, translators 
and index makers in ragged coats of frieze. The great press was to 
‘get near the chair where John Dryden sate. In winter that chair 
was always in the warmest nook by the fire; in summer it stood in 
the balcony. To bow to the Laureate, and to hear his opinion of 
 Racine’s last tragedy or of Bossu’s treatise on epic poetry, was thought 
a privilege. A pinch from his snuff box was an honour sufficient 
to turn the head of a young enthusiast. There were coffee houses 
where the first medical men might be consulted. Doctor John Rad- 
cliffe. who, in the year 1685, rose to the largest practice in London, 
came daily, at the hour when the Exchange was full, from his house 


~_— 


* The chief peculiarity of this dialect was that, in a large class of words, the 

Was pronounced like A. Thus Lord was pronounced Lard. See Vanbrugh’s 
Relapse. Lord Sunderland was a great master of this court tune, as Roger 
North calls it; and Titus Oates affected it in the hope of passing for a fine 
gentleman, Examen, 77,254, 


oe 


Bes ores HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


in Bow Street, then a fashionable part of the capital, to Garraway’s, 
and was to be found, surrounded by surgeons and apothecaries, at a 
particular table. - There were Puritan coffee houses where no oath 
was heard, and where lankhaired men discussed election and reproba- 
tion through their noses; Jew coffee houses where darkeyed money 
changers from Venice and Amsterdam greeted each other; and Popish 
coffee houses where, as good Protestants believed, Jesuits planned, 
en their cups, another great fire, and cast silver bullets to shoot the 
<ing.* 

These gregarious habits had no small share in forming the character 
of the Londoner of that age. He was, indeed, a different being from 
the rustic Englishman. ‘There was not then the intercourse which 
now exists between the two classes. Only very great men were in 
the habit of dividing the year between town and country. Few es- 
quires came to the capital thrice in their lives. Nor was it yet the 
practice of all citizens in easy circumstances to breathe the fresh air 
of the fields and woods during some weeks of every summer. A 
cockney, in arural village, was stared at as much asif he had in- 
truded into a Kraal of Hottentots. On the other hand, when the lord 
of a Lincolnshire or Shropshire manor appeared in Fleet Street, he 
was as easily distinguished from the resident population as a Turk or 
a Lascar. His dress, his gait, his accent, the manner in which he 
gazed at the shops, stumbled into the gutters, ran against the porters, 
and stood under the waterspouts, marked him out as an excellent sub- 
ject for the operations of swindlers and banterers. Bullies jostled 
him into the kennel. Hackney coachmen splashed him from head to 
foot. Thieves explored with perfect security the huge pockets of his 
horseman’s coat, while he stood entranced by the splendour of the 
Lord Mayor’s show. Moneydroppers, sore from the cart’s tail, intro- 
duced themselves to him, and appeared to him the most honest friendly 
gentlemen that he had ever seen. Painted women, the refuse of 
Lewkner Lane and Whetstone Park, passed themselves on him for 
countesses aud maids of honour, If he asked his way to Saint 
James’s, his informants sent him to Mile End. Jf he went into a 
shop, he was instantly discerned to bea fit purchaser of everything 
that nobody else would buy, of second-hand embroidery, copper 
rings, and watches that would not go. If he rambled into any fash- 
wnable coffee house, he became a mark for the insolent derision of 
rops and the grave waggery of Templars. Enraged and mortified, he 
soon returned to his mansion, and there, in the homage of his tenants” 


* Lettres sur les Anglois; Tom Brown’s tour; Ward’s London Spy; the Char- 
acter of a Coffee House, 1673; Rules and Orders of the Coffee House, 1674, Cof- 
fee Houses vindicated, 1675, A Satyr against Coffee, North’s Examen, 138; Life 
of Guildford, 152; Life of Sir Dudley North, 149, Life of Dr Radcliffe, published © 
by Curllin 1715 The liveliest discription of Will’sis in the City and Country — 
Mouse. Thereis a remarkable passage about the influence of the coffee house 
orators in Halstead’s Succinct Genealogies, printed in 1685, a 


S| 
ey 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 239 


i s 


and the conversation of his boon companions, found consolation for 

the vexations and humiliations which he had undergone. There he 
Was once more a great man, and saw nothing above himself except 
when at the assizes he took his seat on the bench near the Judge, or 
when at the muster of the militia he saluted the Lord Lieutenant. 

The chief cause which made the fusion of the different elements of 
society so imperfect was the extreme difficulty which our ancestors 
found in passing from place to place. Of all inventions, the alphabet 
and the printing press alone excepted, those inventions which abridge 
distance have done most for the civilisation of our species. Every 
improvement of the means of locomotion benefits mankind morally 

and intellectually as well as materially, and not only facilitates the 
interchange of the various productions of nature and art, but tends to 
remove national and provincial antipathies, and to bind together all 
the branches of the great human family. In the seventeenth century 
the inhabitants of London were, for almost every practical purpose, 
farther from Reading than they now are from Edinburgh, and farther 
from Edinburgh than they now are from Vienna. 

The subjects of Charles the Second were not, it is true, quite un- 
acquainted with that principle which has, in our own time, produced 
an unprecedented revolution in human affairs, which has enabled 
navies to advance in face of wind and tide, and brigades of troops, 
attended by all their baggage and artillery, to traverse kingdoms at a 
pace equal to that of the fleetest race horse. The Marquess of Wor- 
cester had recently observed the expansive power of moisture rarefied 
by heat. After many experiments he had succeeded in constructing 
a rude steam engine, which he called a fire water work, and which he 
pronounced to be an admirable and most forcible instrument of pro- 
pulsion.* But the Marquess was suspected to be a madman, and 
known to be a Papist. His inventions, therefore, found no favoura- 
ble reception. His fire water work might, perhaps, furnish matter 
for conversation at a meeting of the Royal Society, but was not ap 
plied to any practical purpose. There were no railways, except a few 
made of timber, on which coals were carried from the mouths of the 
Northumbrian pits to the banks of the Tyne.+ There was very lit- 
tle internal communication by water. A few attempts: had been 
made to deepen and embank the natural streams, but with slender 
success. Hardly a single navigable canal had been even projected. 
The English of that day were in the habit of talking with mingled ad- 
miration and despair of the immense trench by which Lewis the 
Fourteenth had made a junction between the Atlantic and the Medi- 
terranean. They little thought that their country would, in the 
course of a few generations, be intersected, at the cost of private ad- 


* Century of Inventions, 1663, No. 68, 
+ North’s Life of Guildford, 136. 


a 


240 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


venturers, by artificial rivers making up more than four times the 
length of the Thames, the Severn, and the Trent together. 

It was by the highways that both travellers and goods generaliy 
passed from place to place; and those highways appear to have been 
far worse than might have been expected from the degree of wealth 
and civilisation which the nation had even then attained On the 
best lines of communication the ruts were deep, the descents precipi- 
tous, and the way often such as it was hardly possible to distinguish, 
in the dusk, from the unenclosed heath and fen which lay on both 
sides. Ralph Thoresby, the antiquary, was in danger of losing his 
way on the great North road, between Barnby Moor and Tuxford, 
and actually lost his way between Doncaster and York.* Pepys and 
his wife, travelling in their own coach, lost their way between New- 
bury and Reading. In the course of the same tour they lost their 
way near Salisbury, and were in danger of having to pass the night 
on the plain.+ It was only in fine weather that the whole breadth of 
the road was available for wheeled vehicles. Often the mud lay deep 
on the right and the left; and only a narrow track of firm ground 
rose above the quagmire.{ At such times obstructions and quarrels 
were frequent, and the path was sometimes blocked up during a long 
time by carriers, neither of whom would break the way, It happened, 
almost every day, that coaches stuck fast, untila team of cattle could 
be procured from some neighbouring farm, to tug them out of the 
slough. But in bad seasons the traveller had to encounter incon, 
veniences still more serious. Thoresby, who was in the habit of 
travelling between Leeds and the capital, has recorded, in his Diary, 
such a series of perils and disasters as might suffice for a journey to 
the Frozen Ocean or to the Desert of Sahara. On one occasion he 
learned that the floods were out between Ware and London, that 
passengers had to swim for their lives, and that a higgler had perished 
in the attempt to cross. In consequence of these tidings he turned 
out of the high road, and was conducted across some meadows, where 
it was necessary for him to ride to the saddle skirts in water.§ In 
the course of another journey he narrowly escaped being swept away 
by an inundation of the Trent. He wasafterwards detained at Stam. 
ford four days, on account of the state of the roads, and then ventured 
to proceed only because fourteen members of the House of Commons, 
who were going up in a body to Parliament with guides and numer- 
ous attendants, took him into their company,|}| On the roads of 
Derbyshire, travellers were in constant fear for their necks, and were 
frequently compelled to alight and lead their beasts.4) The great 


—_ 


* Thoresby’s Diary, Oct. 21, 1680, Aug. 3, 1712. : 

+ Pepys’s Diary, June 12 and 16, 1668 t Ibid. Feb 28, 1660. _ 

§ Thoresby’s Diary, May 17, 1695 | Ibid Dec. 27, 1708. 

§ Tour in Derbyshire, by J Browne, son of Sir Thomas Browne, 1662, Cotton's 
Angler, 1676. 


; 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 241 


route through Wales to Holyhead was in such a state that, in 1685, a 
_ viceroy, going to Ireland, was five hours in travelling fourteen miles, 
from Saint Asaph to Conway. Between Conway and Beaumaris he 
was forced to walk a great part of the way; and his lady was carried 
in a litter. His coach was, with much difficulty, and by the help of 
many hands, brought after him entire. In general, carriages were 
taken to pieces at Conway, and borne, on the shoulders of stout Welsh 
peasants, to the Menai Straits.* In some parts of Kent and Sussex, 
none but the strongest horses could, in winter, get through the bog, 
‘in which, at every step, they sank deep. The markets were often in- 
accessible during several months. It is said that the fruits of the 
- earth were sometimes suffered to rot in one place, while in another 
place, distant only a few miles, the supply fell far short of the de- 
mand. The wheeled carriages were, in this district, generally pulled 
by oxen.t When Prince George of Denmark visited the stately man- 
sion of Petworth in wet weather, he was six hours in going nine 
miles; and it was necessary that a body of sturdy hinds should be on 
each side of his coach, in order to prop it. Of the carriages which 
conveyed his retinue several were upset and injured. A letter from 
one of the party has been preserved, in which the unfortunate cour- 
tier complains that, during fourteen hours, he never once alighted, 
except when his coach was overturned or stuck fast in the mud.t 
_ One chief cause of the badness of the roads seems to have been the 
defective state of the law. Every parish was bound to repair the high- 
Ways which passed through it. The peasantry were forced to give 
their gratuitous labour six days in the year. If this was not sufficient, 
hired labour was employed, and the expense was met by a parochial 
rate. That a route connecting two great towns, which have a large 
and thriving trade with each other, should be maintained at the cost 
of the rural population scattered between them is obviously unjust; 
and this injustice was peculiarly glaring in the case of the great 
North road, which traversed very poor and thinly inhabited districts, 
and joined very rich and populous districts. Indeed it was not in 
the power of the parishes of Huntingdonshire to mend a highway worn 
by the constant traffic between the West Riding of Yorkshire and Lon- 
don. Soon after the Restoration this grievance attracted the notice 
of Parliament; and an act, the first of our many turnpike acts, was 
passed, imposing a small toll on travellers and goods, for the purpose 
of keeping some parts of this important line of communication in good 
repair.§ This innovation, however, excited many murmurs; and the 
other great avenues to the capital were long left under the old system. 
A change was at length effected, but not without much difficulty. 


* Correspondence of Henry Earl of Clarendon, Dec. 30, 1685, Jan. 1, 1686. 
+ Postlethwaite’s Dictionary, Roads; History of Hawkhurst, in the Bibliotheca 
ee agi. nage & 
nnals of Queen Anne endix, No, 3. 
§ 16 Car, Il. ¢. 1. ; Nake 


"ql 


242 IISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


For unjust and absurd taxation to which men are accustomed is 
often borne far more willingly than the most reasonable impost 
which is new. It was not till many toll bars had been violently 
pulled down, till the troops had in many districts been forced to act 
against the people, and till much blood had been shed, that a good 
system was introduced.* By slow degrees reason triumphed over 
prejudice; and our island is now crossed in every direction by near 
thirty thousand miles of turnpike road. 

On the best highways heavy articles were, in the time of Charles 
the Second, generally conveyed from place to place by stage waggons. 
Tn the straw of these vehicles nestled a crowd of passengers, who could 
not afford to travel by coach or on horseback, and who were prevented 
by infirmity, or by the weight of thin luggage, from going on foot. 
The expense of transmitting heavy goods in this way was enormous, 
From London to Birmingham the charge was seven pounds a ton; 
from London to Exeter twelve pounds a ton.+ This was about fif- 
teen pence a ton for every mile, more by a third than was: after- 
wards charged on turnpike roads, and fifteen times what is now de- 
manded by railway companies. The cost of conveyance amounted 
to a prohibitory tax on many useful articles. Coal in particular was 
never seen except in the districts where it was produced, or in the 
districts to which it could be carried by sea, and was indeed always 
known in the south of England by the name of sea coal. 

On byroads, and generally throughout the country north of York 
and west of Exeter, goods were carried by long trains of packhorses, 
These strong and patient beasts, the breed of which is now extinct, 
were attended by a class of men who seem to have borne much re- 
semblance to the Spanish muleteers. A traveller of humble condi- 
tion often found it convenient to perform a journey mounted on a 
packsaddle between two baskets, under the care of these hardy 
guides. The expense of this mode of conveyance was small. But 
the caravan moved at a foot’s pace; and in winter the cold was often 
insupportable. t 

The rich commonly travelled in their own carriages, with at least 
four horses. Cotton, the facetious poet, attempted to go from Lon- 
don to the Peak with a single pair, but found at Saint Albans that 
the journey would be insupportably tedious, and altered his plan.§ 
A coach and six is in our time never seen, except as part of some 
pageant. The frequent mention therefore of such equipages in old 
books is likely to mislead us. We attribute to magnificence what 


—— — 


* The evils of the old system are strikingly set forth in many petitions which 
appear in the Commons’ Journal of 1728. How fierce an opposition was offered 
to the new system may be learned from the Gentleman’s Magazine of :749, 

+ Postlethwaite’s Dict., Roads. 

+ Loidis and Elmete; Marshall’s Rural Economy of England. In 1739 Roderi¢ 
Random came from Scotland to Newcastle on a packhorse. 

§ Cotton’s Epistle to J, Bradshaw. 


P Le ’ 
Sie i os. 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 248 


was really the effect of a very disagreeable necessity. People, in 
the time of Charles the Second, travelled with six horses, because 
with a smaller number there was great danger of sticking fast in the 
mire. Nor were even six horses always sufficient. Vanbrugh, in 
the succeeding generation, described with great humour the way in 
which a country gentleman, newly chosen a member of Parliament, 
went up to London. On that occasion all the exertions of six beasts, 
two of which had been taken from the plough, could not save the 
family coach from being embedded in a quagmire. 
Public carriages had recently been much improved. During the 
rears Which immediately followed the Restoration, a diligence ran 
tween London and Oxford in two days. The passengers slept at 
Beaconsfield. At length, in the spring of 1669, a great and daring in- 
novation was attempted. It was announced that a vehicle, described 
as the Flying Coach, would perform the whole journey between sun- 
rise and sunset. This spirited undertaking was solemnly considered 
and sanctioned by the Heads of the University, and apvears to have 
excited the same sort of interest which is excited in ou. own time by 
the opening of anewrailway. The Vicechancellor, by a notice affixed 
in all public places, prescribed the hour and place of departure. The 
‘success of the experiment was complete. At six in the morning 
the carriage began to move from before the ancient front of All 
Souls College; and at seven in the evening the adventurous gentle- 
men who had run the first risk were safely deposited at their inn in 
London.* The emulation of the sister University was moved; and 
soon a diligence was set up which in one day carried passengers 
from Cambridge to the capital. At the close of the reign of Charles 
the Second, flying carriages ran thrice a week from London to the 
chief towns. But no stage coach, indeed no stage waggon, appears 
to have proceeded further north than York, or further west than 
Exeter. The ordinary day’s journey of a flying coach was about fifty 
miles in the summer; but in winter, when the ways were bad and the 
nights long, little more than thirty. The Chester coach, the York 
coach, and the Exeter coach generally reached London in four days 
during the fine season, but at Christmas not till the sixth day. The 
Passengers, six in number, were all seated in the carriage. For acci- 
dents were so frequent that it would have been most perilous to 
mount the roof. The ordinary fare was about twopence halfpenny 
@ mile in summer, and somewhat more in winter.+ | 
__ This mode of travelling, which by Englishmen of the present day 
would be regarded as insufferably slow, seemed to our ancestors 
wonderfully and indeed alarmingly rapid. In a work published a 
few months before the death of Charles the Second, the flying 


~ 2 


-* Anthony & Wood’s Life of himself. 
_ tChamberlayne’s State of England, 1684. See also the ist of stage coaches 
and waggons at the end of the book, entitled Anglia Metropolis, 1690. 


* # 
‘ 
+ 7 


i 
. 


244 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. : 


coaches are extolled as far superior to any similar vehicles ever 
known in the world. ‘Their velocity is the subject of special com. 
mendation, and is triumphantly contrasted with the sluggish pace of 
the continental posts. But with boasts like these was mingled the 
sound of complaint and invective. The interests of large classes 
had been unfavourably affected by the establishment of the new dili- 
gences; and, as usual, many persons were, from mere stupidity and 
obstinacy, disposed to clamour against the innovation, simply be- 
cause it was an innovation. It was vehemently argued that this 
mode of conveyance would be fatal to the breed of horses and to the 
noble art of horsemanship; that the Thames, which had long been an 
important nursery of seamen, would cease to be the chief thoroughfare 
from London up to Windsor and down to Gravesend; that saddlers 
and spurriers would be ruined by hundreds; that numerous inns, at 
which mounted travellers had been in the habit of stopping, would 
be deserted and would no longer pay any rent; that the new carriages 
were too hot in summer and too cold in winter; that the passengers 
were grievously annoyed by invalids and crying children; that the 
coach reached the inn so late that it was impossible to get sup- 
per, and sometimes started so early that it was impossible to get 
breakfast. On these grounds it was gravely recommended that 
no public coach should be permitted to have more than four horses, 
to start oftener than once a week, or to go more than thirty miles a 
day. Itwas hoped that, if this regulation were adopted, all except 
the sick and the lame would return to the old mode of travelling. 
Petitions embodying such opinions as these were presented to the 
King in council from several companies of the City of London, from 
several provincial towns, and from the justices of several counties. 
We smile at these things. It is not impossible that our descendants, 
when they read the history of the opposition offered by cupidity 
and prejudice to the improvements of the nineteenth century, may 
smile in their turn.* 

In spite of the attractions of the flying coaches, it was still usual 
for men who enjoyed health and vigour, and who were not encum- 
bered by much baggage, to perform long journeys on horseback. If 
the traveller wished to move expeditiously he rode post. Fresh sad- 
die horses and guides were to be procured at convenient places along 
all the great lines of road. The charge was threepence a mile for 
each horse, and fourpence a stage for the guide. In this manner, 
when the ways were good, it was possible to travel, for a consider- 
able time, as rapidly as by any conveyance known in England, till 
vehicles were propelled by steam. There were as yet no post 


* John Cresset’s Reasons for suppressing Stage Coaches, 1672. These reasons 
were afterwards inserted in a tract, entitled The Grand Concern of England 
explained, 1673." Cresset’s attack on stage coaches called forth some answers 


which I have consulted. ey 
* q 4 
ai 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 245 


‘chaises; nor could those who rode in their own coaches ordinarily 
procure a change of horses. The King, however, and the great offi- 
cers of state were able to command relays. Thus Charles commonly 
went in one day from Whitehall to Newmarket, a distance of about 
fifty-five miles through a level country; and this was thought by his 
subjects a proof of great activity. Evelyn performed the same 
journey in company with the Lord Treasurer Clifford. The coach 
was drawn by six horses, which were changed at Bishop Stortford 
and again at Chesterford. The travellers reached Newmarket at 
night. Such a mode of conveyance seems to have been considered 
as a rare luxury confined to princes and ministers.* 

_ Whatever might be the way in which a journey was performed, 
the travellers, unless they were numerous and well armed, ran con- 
siderable risk of being stopped and plundered. ‘The mounted high- 
wayman, a marauder known to our generation only from books, was 
to be found on every main road. The waste tracks which lay on 
the great routes near London were especially haunted by plunderers 
of this class. Hounslow Heath, on the Great Western Road, 

and Finchley Common, on the Great Northern Road, were per- 
haps the most celebrated of these spots. ‘The Cambridge scholars 
trembled when they approached Epping Forest, even ® broad day- 
light. Seamen who had just been paid off at Chatham were often 
compelled to deliver their purses on Gadshill, celebrated near a 
hundred years earlier by the greatest of poets as the scene of the 
depredations of Falstaff. The public authorities seem to have been 
often at a loss how to deal with the plunderers. At one time it 
was announced in the Gazette, that several persons, who were strong- 
ly suspected of being highwaymen, but against whom there was not 
sufficient evidence, would be paraded at Newgate in riding dresses: 
their horses would also be shown; and all gentlemen who had been 
robbed were invited to inspect this singular exhibition. On another 
occasion a pardon was publicly offered to a robber if he would give 
up some rough diamonds, of immense value, which he had taken 
when he stopped the Harwich mail. <A short time afterward ap- 
peared another proclamation, warning the innkeepers that the eye of 
the government was upon them. Their criminal connivance, it was 
affirmed, enabled banditti to infest the roads with impunity. That 
these suspicions were not without foundation, is proved by the 
dying speeches of some penitent robbers of that age, who appear to 
have received from the innkeepers services much resembling those 
which Farquhar’s Boniface rendered to Gibbet.+ 


*Chamberlayne’s State of England, 1684; North’s Examen, 105; Evelyn’s 
Diary, Oct. 9, 10, 1671. 

t See the London Gazette, May 14, 1677, August 4, 1687, Dec. 5, 1687. The last 
confession of Augustin King, who was the son of an eminent divine, and had 
been ee at Cambridge but was hanged at Colchester in March, 1688, is 

ious, : 


_ 
4 


\ 


246 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


It was necessary to the success and even to the safety of the high- 
wayman that he should be a bold and skilful rider, and that his 
manners and appearance should be such as suited the master of a 
fine horse. He therefore held an aristocratical position in the com- 
munity of thieves, appeared at fashionable coffee houses and gaming. 
houses, and betted with men of quality on the race ground.* Some- 
times, indeed, he was a man of good family and education. A 
romantic interest therefore attached, and perhaps still attaches, to 
the names of freebooters of this class. The vulgar eagerly drank in 
tales of their ferocity and audacity, of their occasional acts of gener- 
osity and good nature, of their amours, of their miraculous escapes, — 
of their desperate struggles, and of their manly bearing at the bar 
and in the cart. Thus it was related of William Nevison, the great 
robber of Yorkshire, that he levied a quarterly tribute on all the 
northern drovers, and, in return, not only spared them himself, but 
protected them against all other thieves; that he gave largely to the 
poor what he had taken from the rich; that his life was once spared 
by the royal clemency, but that he again tempted his fate, and at 
length died, in 1685, on the gallows of York.+ It was related how 
Claude Duval, the French page of the Duke of Richmond, took to 
the road, became captain of a formidable gang, and had the honour 
to be named first in a royal proclamation against notorious offenders; 
how at the head of his troop he stopped a lady’s coach, in which 
there was a booty of four hundred pounds; how he took only one 
hundred, and suffered the fair owner to ransom the rest by dancing 
a coranto with him on the heath; how his vivacious gallantry stole 
away the hearts of all women; how his dexterity at sword and pistol 
made him a terror to all men; how, at length, in the year 1670, he 
was seized when overcome by wine; how dames of high rank visited 
him in prison, and with tears interceded for his life; how the King 
would have granted a pardon, but for the interference of Judge Mor- 
ton, the terror of highwaymen, who threatened to resign his office unless 
the law were carried into full effect; and how, after the execution, 
the corpse lay in state with all the pomp of scutcheons, wax lights, 
black hangings and mutes, till the same cruel Judge, who had inter- 
cepted the mercy of the crown, sent officers to disturb the obsequies. 


* Aimwell, Pray Sir, han’t I seen your face at Will’s coffeehouse? 
Gibbet. Yes, sir, and at White’s too.—Beaux’ Stratagem. 
+ Gent’s History of York. Another marauder of the same description, named 
Biss, was hanged at Salisbury in 1695. In a ballad which is in the Pepysian 
Library, he is represented as defending himself thus before the Judge: 


“What say you now, my honoured Lord, 
What harm was there in this? 
Rich, wealthy misers were abhorred 
By brave, freehearted Biss.”’ 


+ Pope’s Memoirs of Duval, Pablshed immediately after the execution. 


Oates’s Hinaiv Sadidixy, Par 


v< 
7 
aS 


ne these anecdotes there is doubtless a large mixture of fable; but 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. O47 


they are not on that account unworthy of being recorded; for it is 
both an authentic and an important fact that such tales, whether 
false or true, were heard by our ancestors with eagerness and 


- faith. 


All the various dangers by which the traveller was beset were 
greatly increased by darkness. He was therefore commonly desirous 
of having the shelter of aroof during the night; and such shelter it was 
not difficult to obtain. From a very early period the inns of England 


‘had been renowned. Our first great poet had described the excellent 


accommodation which they afforded to the pilgrims of the fourteenth 
century. Nine and twenty persons, with their horses, found room 
in the wide chambers and stables of the Tabard in Southwark. The 
food was of the best, and the wines such as drew the company on to 
drink largely. Two hundred years later, under the reign of Eliza- 


beth, William Harrison gave a lively description of the plenty and 


comfort of the great hostelries. The Continent of Europe, he said, 


could show nothing like them. There were some in which two or 


three hundred pcople, with their horses, could without difficulty be 
lodged and fed. The bedding, the tapestry, above all, the abundance 
of clean and fine linen was matter of wonder. Valuable plate was 
often set on the tables. Nay, there were signs which had cost thirty 
or forty pounds. In the seventeenth century England abounded with 
excellent inns of every rank. The traveller sometimes, in a small 
village, lighted on a public house such as Walton has described, 


where the brick floor was swept clean, where the walls were stuck 


round with ballads, where the sheets smelt of lavender, and where a ~ 
blazing fire, a cup of good ale, and a dish of trouts fresh from the 
neighbouring brook, were to be procured at small charge. At the 
larger houses of entertainment were to be found beds hung with silk, 
choice cookery, and claret equal to the best which was drunk in Lon- 


_don.* The innkeepers too, it was said, were not like other innkeepers. 


On the Continent the landlord was the tyrant of those who crossed 
the threshold. In England he wasa servant. Never was an English- 
man more at home than when he took his ease in hisinn. Even men 
of fortune, who might in their own mansions have enjoyed every 
luxury, were often in the habit of passing their evening in the par- 
lour of some neighbouring house of public entertainment. They 
seem to have thought that comfort and freedom could in no other 
place be enjoyed with equal perfection. This feeling continued 
during many generations to be a national peculiarity. The liberty 


and jollity of inns long furnished matter to our novelists and drama- 


& 


¥ 


" 


*See the “OS to the Canterbury Tales, Harrison’s Historical Description 
of the Island of Great Britain, and Pepys’s account of his tour in the summer of 


uke Cosmo. 


Ss “ae ‘The excellence of the English inns is noticed in the Travels of the Grand 


< 


‘tbs 


248 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


tists. Johnson declared that a tavern chair was the throne of human 
felicity; and Shenstone gently complained that no private roof, how- 
ever friendly, gave the wanderer so warm a welcome as that which 
was to be found at an inn. 

Many conveniences, which were unknown at Hampton Court and 
Whitehall in the seventeenth century, are in all modern hotels. Yet 
on the whole it is certain that the improvement of our houses of 
public entertainment has by no means kept pace with the improve- 
ment of our roads and of our conveyances. Nor is this strange; for 
it is evident that, all other circumstances being supposed equal, the 
inns will be best where the means of locomotion are worst. The 
quicker the rate of travelling, the less important it is that there 
should be numerous agreeable resting places for the traveller. A 
hundred and sixty years ago a person who came up to the capital 
from aremote county generally required, by the way, twelve or fif- 
teen meals, and lodging for five or six nights. If he were a great 
man, he expected the meals and lodging to be comfortable, and even 
luxurious. At present we fly from York or Exeter to London by the 
light of a single winter’s day. At present, therefore, a traveller sel- 
dom interrupts his journey merely for the sake of rest and refresh- 
ment. The conscquence is that hundreds of excellent inns have 
fallen into utter decay. In a short time no good houses of that de- 
scription will be found, except at places where strangers are likely to 
be detained by business or pleasure. 

The mode in which correspondence was carried on between distant 
places may excite the scorn of the present generation; yet it was 
such as might have moved the admiration and envy of the polished 
nations of antiquity, or of the contemporaries of Raleigh and Cecil. 
A rude and imperfect establishment of posts for the conveyance of 
letters had been set up by Charles the First, and had been swept away 
by the civil war. Under the Commonwealth the design was resumed. 
At the restoration the proceeds of the Post Office, after all expenses 
had been paid, were settled on the Duke of York. On most lines of 
road the mails went out and came in only on the alternate days. In 
Cornwall, in the fens of Lincolnshire, and among the hills and lakes 
of Cumberland, letters were received only once a week. During a 
royal progress a daily post was despatched from the capital to the 
place where the court sojourned. There was also daily communica- 
tion between London and the Downs; and the same privilege was 
sometimes extended to Tunbridge Wells and Bath at the seasons 
when those places were crowded by the great. The bags were Car- 
ried on horseback day and night at the rate of about five miles an 
hour.* 

The revenue of this establishment was not derived solely from the 


* Stat. 12 Car. IL. c. 35; Chamberlayne’s State of England, 1684; Anglize Me 
tropolis, 1690; London Gazette, June 22, 1685, August 15, 1687, ; 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 249 


charge for the transmission of letters The Post Office-alone was 
entitled to furnish post horses; and, from the care with which this 
monopoly was guarded, we may infer that it was found profitable. * 
If, indeed, a traveller had waited half an hour without being sup. 
plied he might hire a horse wherever he could. 

To facilitate correspondence between one part of London and an 
other was not originally one of the objects of the Post Office. But, 
in the reign of Charles the Second, an enterprising citizen of London, 
William Dockwray, set up, at great expense, a penny post, which de- 
livered letters and parcels six or eight times a day in the busy and 
crowded streets near the Exchange, and four times a day in the out- 

skirts of the capital This improvement was, as usual, strenuously 
resisted The porters complained that their interests were attacked, 
and tore down the placards in which the scheme was announced to 
the public. The excitement caused by Godfrey’s death, and by the 
discovery of Coleman’s papers, was then at the height. A cry was 
therefore raised that the penny post was a Popish contrivance. The 
great Doctor Oates, it was aflirmed, had hinted a suspicion that the 
Jesuits were at the bottom of the scheme, and that the bags, if ex- 
amined, would be found full of treason.t The utility of the enter- 
prise was, however, so great and obvious that all opposition proved 
fruitless. As soon as it became clear that the speculation would be 
lucrative, the Duke of York complained of it as an infraction of his 
monopoly; and the courts of Jaw decided in his favour. t 
The revenue of the Post Oflice was from the first constantly in- 
-creasing. In the year of the Restoration a committee of the House 
of Commons, after strict enquiry, had estimated the net receipt at 
_ about twenty thousand pounds. At the close of the reign of Charles 
the Second, the net receipt was little short of fifty thousand pounds, 
and this was then thought a stupendous sum. The gross receipt was 
about seventy thousand pounds. The charge for conveying a single 
letter was two pence for eighty miles, and threepence for a longer 
distance. The postage increased in proportion to the weight of the 
bsie At present a single letter is carried to the extremity of 
Scotland or of Ireland for a penny; and the monopoly of post horses 
has long ceased to exist. Yet the gross annual reccipts of the depart- 
ment amount to more than eighteen hundred thousand pounds, and 
the net receipts to more than seven hundred thousand pounds. It is, 
_ therefore, scarcely possible to doubt that the number of letters now 
conveyed by mail is seventy times the number which was so conveyed 
at the time of the accession of James the Second. || 


*Lond. Gaz., Sept. 14, 1685. 

tSmith’s Current Intelligence, March 30, and April 3, 1680. 

t Anglize Metropolis, 1690. 

§ Commons’ Journals, Sept. 4, 1660, March 1, 1688-9; Chamberlayne, 1684; Dav- 
enant on the Public Revenue, Discourse LV. 

| I have left the text as it stood in 1848. In the year 1856 the gross receipt of 
the Post Office was more than 2,800,00C/.; and the net receipt was about 1,200, 
00L ™he number of letters conveyed by post was 478,000,000, (1857.) 


200 HISTORY-OF ENGLAND 


No part of the load which the old mails carried out was more im 
portant than the newsletters. In 1685 nothing like the London daily 
paper of our time existed, or could exist Neither the necessary 
capital nor the necessary skill was to be found. Freedom too was 
wanting, a want as fatal as that of either capital or skill. The press 
was not indeed at that moment under a general censorship The 
licensing act, which had been passed soon after the Restoration, had 
expired in 1679. Any person might therefore print, at his own risk, a 
history, a sermon, or a poem, without the previous approbation of any 
officer; but the Judges were unanimously of opinion that this liberty did 
not extend to Gazettes, and that, by the common law of England, no 
man, not authorised by the crown, had a right to publish political news.* 
While the Whig party was still formidable, the government thought it 
expedient occasionally to connive at the violation of thisrule. During 
the great battle of the Exclusion Bill, many newspapers were suffered 
to appear, the Protestant Intelligence, the Current Intelligence, 
the Domestic Intelligence, the True News, the London Mercury.+ 
None of these was published oftener than twice a week. None ex: 
ceeded in size asingle small leaf. The quantity of matter which one 
of them contained in a year was not more than is often found in two 
numbers of the Times. After the defeat of the Whigs it was no 
longer necessary for the King to be sparing in the use of that which 
all his Judges had pronounced to be his undoubted prerogative At 
the close of his reign no newspaper was suffered to appear without 
his allowance. and his allowance was given exclusively to the London 
Gazette. The London Gazette came out only on Mondays and Thurs- 
days. The contents generally were a royal proclamation, two or 
three Tory addresses, notices of two or three promotions, an account 
of a skirmish between the imperial troops and the Janissavies on the 
Danube, a description of a highwayman, an announcement of a 
grand cockfight between two persons of honour, and an advertise 
ment offering a reward for a strayed dog The whole made up two 
pages of moderate size. Whatever was communicated respecting 
matters of the highest moment was communicated in the most mea- 
gre and formal style. Sometimes, indeed, when the government was 
disposed to gratify the public curiosity respecting an important trans: 
action, a broadside was put forth giving fuller details than could be 
found in the Gazette. but neither the Gazette nor any supplementary 
broadside printed by authority ever contained any intelligence which 
it did not suit.the purposes of the Court to publish The most im- 
portant parliamentary debates, the most important state trials re ~ 
corded in our history, were passed over in profound silence.{ In the 


* London Gazette, May 5, and 17, 1580. 

tThere is a very curious, and, I should think, unique collection of these papers 
in the British Museum. 

t¢lor example, there is not a word in the Gazette about the important parlia- 
mentary proceedings of November, 1685, or about the trial and acquittal of the” 


Seven Bishops. 
Zz 


\ 
' 


| HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 251 


—> 
‘eapital the coffee houses supplied in some measure the place of a 
ournal. ‘hither the Londoners flocked, as the Athenians of old 
ocked to the market place, to hear whether there was any news. 
There men might learn how brutally a Whig had been treated the 
day before in Westminster Hall, what horrible accounts the letters 
from Edinburgh gave of the torturing of Covenanters, how grossly 
the Navy Board had cheated the crown in the victualling of the fleet, 
and what grave charges the Lord Privy Seal had brought against the 
Treasury in the matter of the hearth money. But people who lived 
at a distance from the great theatre of political contention could be 
kept regularly informed of what was passing there only by means of 
newsletters. To prepare such letters became a calling in London, as 
_it now is among the natives of India. The newswriterrambled from 
coffee room to coffee room, collecting reports, squeezed himself into 
the Sessions House at the Old Bailey if there was an interesting trial, 
nay perhaps obtained admission to the gallery of Whitehall, and 
noticed how the King and Duke looked. In this way he gathered 
materials for weekly epistles destined to enlighten some country town 
or some bench of rustic magistrates. Such were the sources from 
which the inhabitants of the largest provincial cities, and the great 
body of the gentry and clergy, learned almost all that they knew of 
the history of their own time. We must suppose that at Cambridge 
there were as Many persons curious to know what was passing in 
the world as at almost any place in the kingdom, out of London. 
Yet at Cambridge, during a great part of the reign of Charles the 
Second, the Doctors of Laws and the Masters of Art had no regular 
supply of news except through the London Gazette. At length the 
services of one of the collectors of intelligence in the capital were 
employed. ‘That was a memorable day on which the first newsletter 
from London was laid on the table of the only coffee room in Cam- 
-bridge.* At the seat of aman of fortune in the country the news- 
letter was impatiently expected. Within a week after it had arrived 
it had been thumbed by twenty families. It furnished the neighbour- 
ing squires with matter for talk over their October, and the neigh- 
_ bouring rectors with topics for sharp sermons against Whiggery or 
Popery. Many of these curious journals might doubtless still be de- 
tected by a diligent search in the archives of old families. Some are 
to be found in our public libraries; and one series, which is not the 
_ least valuable part of the literary treasures collected by Sir James 
Mackintosh, will be occasionally quoted in the course of this work.t 


__*Roger North’s Life of Dr. John North. On the subject of newsletters, se@ 
the Examen, 133. 

tI take this opportunity of expressing my warm gratitude to the family of my 

dear and honoured friend Sir James Mackintosh for confiding to me the materi- 

als collected by him at a time when he meditated a work similar to that whichI 

; have undertaken. I have never seen, and I do not believe that there anywhere 

” 6xists, within the same compass, so noble a collection of extracts from public 


+ 


bea 
t 
" ; 
ee | 
i : 


252 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, 


It is scarcely necessary to say that there were then nc provincial 
newspapers. Indeed, except in the capital and at the two Univer- 
sities, there was scarcely a printer in the kingdom. The only pres« 
in England north of Trent appears to have been at York * 

It was not only by means of the London Gazette that the govern- 
ment undertook to furnish political instruction to the people. That 
journal contained a scanty supply of news without comment An- 
other journal, published under the patronage of the court, consisted 
of comment without news. This paper, called the Observator was 
edited by an old Tory pamphleteer named Roger Lestrange. Le- 
strange was by no means deficient in readiness and shrewdness; and 
his diction, though coarse, and disfigured by a mean and flippant 
jargon which then passed for wit in the green room and the tavern, 
was not without keenness and vigour. But his nature, at once fero- 
cious and ignoble, showed itself in every line thathe penned. When 
the first Observators appeared there was some excuse for his acri- 
mony. The Whigs were then powerful; and he had to contend 
against numerous adversaries, whose unscrupulous violence might 
seem to justify unsparing retaliation. But in 1685 all the opposition 
had been crushed. <A generous spirit would have disdained to insult 
a party which could not reply, and to aggravate the misery of pris- 
oners, of exiles, of bereaved families: but from the malice of Le- 
strange the grave was no hiding place, and the house of mourning no 
sanctuary. In the last month of the reign of Charles the Second, 
William Jenkyn, an aged dissenting pastor of great note, who had 
been cruelly persecuted for no crime but that of worshipping God 
according to the fashion generally followed throughout Protestant 
Europe, died of hardships and privationsat Newgate. The out- 
break of popular sympathy could not be repressed. The corpse was 
followed to the grave by a train of a hundred and fifty coaches. 
Even courtiers looked sad. Even the unthinking King showed some 
signs of concern. Lestrange alone set up a howl of savage exulta- 
tion, laughed at the weak compassion of the Trimmers, proclaimed 
that the blasphemous old impostor had met with a most righteous 
punishment, and vowed to wage war, not only to the death, but after 
death, with all the mock saints and martyrs.{ Such was the spirit of 
the paper which was at this time the oracle of the Tory party, and 
especially of the parochial clergy. 


and private archives. The judgment with which Sir James, in great masses Of 
the rudest ore of history, selected what was valuable, and rejected what was 
worthless, can be fully appreciated only by one who has toiled after him in the 
same mine. 

* Life of Thomas Gent. A complete list of all printing houses in 1724 will be 
found in Nichols’s Literary Anecdotes of the eighteenth century. There had 
then been a great increase within a few years in the number of presses; and yet 
there were thirty-four counties in which there was no printer, one of those 
counties being Lancashire. ] 
Hs! eed ccd Jan. 29, and 31, 1685; Calamy’s Life of Baxter; Nonconformist 

emorial, 


: _ Literature which could be carried by the post bag then formed the 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 258. 


ter part of the intellectual nutriment ruminated by the country 
Seine and country justices. The difficulty and expense of convey- 
ing large packets from place to place was so great, that an extensive 
work was longer in making its way from Paternoster Row to Devon- 
shire or Lancashire than it now is in reaching Kentucky. How 
scantily a rural parsonage was then furnished, even with books the 
most necessary to a theologian, has already been remarked. The 
houses of the gentry were not more plentifully supplied. Few 
knights of the shire had libraries so good as may now perpetually be 
found in a servants’ hall or in the back parlour of a small shopkeeper. 
An esquire passed among his neighbours for a great scholar, if Hudi- 
bras and Baker’s Chronicle, Tarlton’s Jests and the Seven Champions 
of Christendom, lay in his hall window among the fishing rods and 
fowling pieces. No circulating library, no book society, then existed 
even in the capital: but in the capital those students who could not 
afford to purchase largely had a resource. The shops of the great 
booksellers, near Saint Paul’s Churchyard, were crowded every day 
and all day long with readers; and a known customer was often per- 
mitted to carry a volume home. In the country there was no such 
accommodation; and every man was under the necessity or buying 
whatever he wished to read.* 
As to the lady of the manor and her daughters, their literary stores 


generally consisted of a prayer book and receipt book. But in truth 
_ they lost little by living in rural seclusion. Jor, even in the highest 


ranks, and in those situations which afforded the greatest facilities 
for mental improvement, the English women of that generation were 
decidedly worse educated than they have been at any other time since 
the revival of learning. At anearly period they had studied the 
masterpieces of ancient genius. In the present day they seldom 
bestow much attention on the dead languages; but they are familiar 
with the tongue of Pascal and Moliere, with the tongue of Dante and 


_ Tasso, with the tongue of Goethe and Schiller; nor is there any purer 
or more graceful English than that which accomplished women now 


speak and write. But, during the latter part of the seventeenth 


_ Century, the culture of the female mind seems to have been almost 


entirely neglected. If a damsel had the least smattering of literature 
she was regarded as a prodigy. Ladies highly born, highly bred, and 
naturally quick witted, were unable to write a line in their mother 
vengue without solecisms and faults of spelling such as a charity girl 
Would now be ashamed to commit.+ 


— 


* Cotton seems, from his Angler, to have found room for his whole library in 
his hall window; and Cotton was a man of letters. Even when Franklin first 
ited London in 1724, circulating libraries were unknown there. The crowd at 


_ the booksellers’ shops in Little Britain is mentioned by Roger North in his life 


of his brother John. 
t One instance will suffice. Queen Mary, the daughter of James, had excel- 


_ lent natural abilities, had been educated by a Bishop, was fond of history and 


M. E. i.—9 


4 


954 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. } 


The explanation may easily be found. Extravagant licentiousness, 
the natural effect of extravagant austerity, was now the mode; and 
licentiousness had produced its ordinary effect, the moral ‘and intel- 
lectual degradation of women. ‘To their personal beauty, it was the 
fashion to pay rude and impudent homage. But the admiration and 
desire which they inspired were seldom mingled with respect, with 
affection, or with any chivalrous sentiment. The qualities which fit 
them to be companions, advisers, confidential friends, rather repelled 
than attracted the libertines of Whitehall In that court a maid of 
honour, who dressed in such a manner as to do full justice to a white 
bosom, who ogled significantly, who danced voluptuously, who ex- 
celled in pert repartee, who was not ashamed to romp with Lords of 
the Bedchamber and Captains of the Guards, to sing sly verses with 
sly expression, or to put on a page’s dress fora frolic, was more likely 
to be followed and admired, more likely to be honoured with royal 
attentions, more likely to win a rich and noble husband than Jane 
Grey or Lucy Hutchinson would have been. In such circumstances 
the standard of female attainments was necessarily low; and it was 
more dangerous to be above that standard than to be beneath it. 
Extreme ignorance and frivolity were thought less unbecoming in a 
lady than the slightest tinctur of pedantry. Of the too celebrated 
women whose faces we still admire on the walls of Hampton Court, 
few indeed were in the habit of reading anything more valuable 
than acrostics, lampoons, and translations of the Clelia and the Grand 
Cyrus. bs 

The literary acquirements, even of the accomplished gentlemen of 
that generation, seem to have been somewhat less solid and profound 
than at an earlier ora later period. Greek learning, at least, did not 
flourish among us in the days of Charles the Second, as it had flour- 
ished before the civil war, or as it again flourished long after the Rev- 
olution. There were undoubtedly scholars to whom the whole Greek 
literature, from Homer to Photius, was familiar: but such scholars 
were to be found almost exclusively among the clergy resident at the 
Universities, and even at the Universities were few, and were not fully 
appreciated. At Cambridge it was not thought by any means neces- 
sary that a divine should be able to read the Gospels in the original.* 
Nor was the standard at Oxford higher. When, in the reign of 
William the Third, Christ Church rose up as one man to defend the 
genuineness of the Epistles of Phalaris, that great college, then con- 


poetry and was regarded by very eminent men as a superior woman. There 
is, in the library at the Hague, a superb- English Bible which was delivered to 
her when she was crowned in Westminster Abbey. Inthe titlepage are these 
words in her own hand, ‘This book was given the King and I, at our crowna- 
tion. Marie R.”’ 

* Roger North tells us that his brother John, who was Greek professor at 
Cambridge complained bitterly of the general neglect of the Greek tongue 
among the academical clergy. 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 265 


sidered as the first seat of philology in the kingdom, could not muster 
such a stock of Attic learning as is now possessed by several youths 
at every great public school. It may easily be supposed that a dead 
language, neglected at the Universities, was not much studied by men 
of the world. In a former age the poetry and eloquence of Greece 
had been the delight of Raleigh and Falkland. In a later age the 

oetry and eloquence of Greece were the delight of Pitt and Fox, of 
Win ham and Grenville. But during the latter part of the seven- 
teenth century there was in England scarcely one eminent statesman 
who could read with enjoyment a page of Sophocles or Plato. 

Good Latin scholars were numerous. The language of Rome, in- 
deed, had not altogether lost its imperial prerogatives, and was still, 
in many parts of Europe, almost indispensable to a traveller or a 
negotiator. ‘To speak it well was therefore a much more common 
accomplishment than in our time; and neither Oxford nor Cambridge 
wanted poets who, on a great occasion, could lay at the foot of the 
throne happy imitations of the verses in which Virgil and Ovid had. 
celebrated the greatness of Augustus. 

Yet even the Latin was giving way toa younger rival. France 
united at that time almost every species of ascendency. Her mili- 
tary glory was at the height. She had vanquished mighty coalitions. 
She had dictated treaties. She had subjugated great cities and pro- 
vinces, She had forced the Castilian pride to yield her the prece- 
dence. She had summoned Italian princes to prostrate themselves 
at her footstool. Her authority was supreme in all matters of good 
breeding, from a duel to a minuet. She determined how a gentle- 
man’s coat must be cut, how long his peruke must be, whether his 
heels must be high or low, and whether the lace on his hat must be 
broad ornarrow. In literature she gave law to the world. The fame 
of her great writers filled Europe. No other country could produce 
a tragic poet equal to Racine. a comic poet equal to Moliere, a trifler 
so agreeable as La Fontaine, a rhetorician so skilful as Bossuet. The 
literary glory of Italy and of Spain had set; that of Germany had 
not yet dawned. The genius, therefore, of the eminent men who 
adorned Paris shone forth with a splendour which was set off to full 
advantage by contrast. France, indeed, had at that time an empire 
over mankind, such as even the Roman Republic never attained. 
For, when Rome was politically dominant, she was in arts and letters 
the humble pupil of Greece. France had, over the surrounding 
countries, at once the ascendency which Rome had over Greece, 
and the ascendency which Greece had over Rome. French was 
fast becoming the universal language, the language of fashion- 
able society, the language of diplomacy. At several courts princes 
and nobles spoke it more accurately and politely than their mother 
tongue. In our island there was less of this servility than on the 
Continent. Neither our good nor our bad qualities were those of 
imitators. Yet even here homage was paid, awkwardly indeed and 


256 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


sullenly, to the literary supremacy of ourneighbours The melodious 
Tuscan, so familiar to the gallants and ladies of the court of Eliza- 
beth, sank into contempt. A gentlemen who quoted Horace or 
Terence was considered in good company as a pompous pedant. But 
to garnish his conversation with scraps of French was the best proof 
which he could give of his parts and attainments.* New canons of 
criticism, new models of style came into fashion. The quaint in- 
genuity which had deformed the verses of Donne, and had been a 
blemish on those of Cowley, disappeared from our poetry. Our 
prose became less majestic, less artfully involved, less variously 
musical than that of an earlier age, but more lucid, more easy, and 
better fitted for controversy and narrative. In these changes it is 
impossible not to recognise the influence of French precept and of 
French example. Great masters of our language, in their most dig 
nified compositions, affected to use French words, when English 
words, quite as expressive and sonorous, were at hand: + and from ~ 
France was imported the tragedy in rhyme, an exotic which, in our 
soil, drooped, and speedily died. 

It would have been well if our writers had also copied the decorum 
which their great French contemporaries, wlth few exceptions, pre- — 
served; for the profligacy of the English plays, satires, songs, and 
novels of that age is a deep blot on our national fame. The evil 
may easily be traced to its source. The wits and the Puritans had 
never been on friendly terms. There was no sympathy between 
the two classes. They looked on the whole system of human life 
from different points and in different lights. The earnest of each 
was the jest of the other. The pleasures of each were the torments 
of the other. To the stern precisian even the innocent sport of the 
fancy seemed a crime. To light and festive natures the solemnity of 
the zealous brethren furnished copious matter of ridicule. From 
the Reformation to the civil war, almost every writer, gifted with a 
fine sense of the ludicrous, had taken some opportunity of assailing 
the straighthaired, snuffling, whining saints, who christened their 
children out of the Book of Nehemiah, who groaned in spirit at the 
sight of Jack in the Green, and who thought it impious to taste plum 
porridge on Christmas day. At length a time came when the laugh- 
ers began to look grave in their turn. The rigid, ungainly zealots, 


~_~—-= -——- 


* Butler, in a satire of great asperity, says, 

“For, though to smattensvords of Greek 
And Latin be the rhetorique 
Of pedants counted, arid vainglorious, 
To smatter French is meritorious.”’ 

+ The most offensive instance which I remember isin a poems on the corona- 
tion of Charles the Second vy Dryden, who certainly could not plead poverty as 
an excuse for borrowing words from any foreign tongue:— 

‘*Hither in summer venings you cepair 
To taste the fraicheur of the cooler air.” 


& 


7 | 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. i ee 


after having furnished much good sport during two generations, 
rose up in arms, conquered, ruled, and, grimly smiling, trod down 
under their feet the whole crowd of mockers. The wounds inflicted 
by gay and petulant malice were retailed with the gloomy and im- 
placable malice peculiar to bigots who mistake their own rancour for 
virtue. The theatres were closed. The players were flogged. The 
press was put under the guardianship of austere licensers. The 
Muses were banished from their own favourite haunts, Cambridge 
and Oxford. Cowley, Crashaw, and Cleveland were ejected from 
their fellowships. The young candidate for academical honours was 
no longer required to write Ovidian epistles or Virgilian pastorals, 
but was strictly interrogated by a synod of lowering Supralapsarians 
as to the day and hour when he experienced the new birth. Sucha 
system was of course fruitful of hypocrites. Under sober clothing 
and under visages composed to the expression of austerity lay hid 
during several years the intense desire of license and of revenge. At 
length that desire was gratified. The Restoration emancipated thou- 
sands of minds from a yoke which had become insupportable. The 
old fight recommenced, but with an animosity altogether new. It 
was now not a sportive combat, but a war to the death. The Round- 
head had no better quarter to expect from those whom he had per- 
secuted that a cruel slavedriver can expect from insurgent slaves still 
bearing the marks of his collars and his scourges. 

The war between wit and Puritanism soon became a war between 
wit and morality. The hostility excited by a grotesque cari- 
cature of virtue did not spare virtue herself. Whatever the canting 
Roundhead had regarded with reverence was insulted. Whatever he 
had proscribed was favoured. Because he had been scrupulous about 
trifles, all scruples were treated with derision. Because he had cover- 
ed his failings with the mask of devotion, men were encouraged to 
obtrude with Cynic impudence all their most scandalous vices on the 
public eye. Because he had punished illicit love with barbarous se- 
verity, virgin purity and conjugal fidelity were made a jest. To that 
sanctimonious jargon which was his Shibboleth, was opposed another 
jargon not less absurd and much more odious. As he never opened 
his mouth except in scriptural phrase, the new breed of wits and fine 
gentlemen never opened their mouths without uttering ribaldry of 
which a porter would now be ashamed, and without calling on their 
Maker to curse them, sink them, confound them, blast them, and 
damn them. 

It is not strange, therefore, that our polite literature, when it re- 
vived with the revival of the old civil and ecclesiastical polity, should 
have been profoundly immoral. A few eminent men, who belonged 
to an earlier and better age, were exempt from the general contagion. 
The verse of Waller still breathed the sentiments which had animated 
a more chivalrous generation. Cowley, distinguished as a loyalist 
and as a man of letters, raised his voice courageously against the im- 


258 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. . 


morality which disgraced both letters and loyalty. A mightier poet, 
tried at once by pain, danger, poverty, obloquy, and blindness, med- 
itated, undisturbed by the obscene tumult which raged all around 
him, a song so sublime and so holy that it would not have misbecome 
the lips of those ethereal Virtues whom he saw, with that inner eye 
which no calamity could darken, flinging down on the jasper pave- 
ment their crowns of amaranth and gold. The vigourous and fertile 
genius of Butler, if it did not altogether escape the prevailing infec- 
tion, took the disease in a mild form. But these were men whose 
minds had been trained in a world which had passed away. They 
gave place in no long time to a younger generation of wits; and of 
that generation, from Dryden down to Durfey, the common charac- 
teristic was hard-hearted, shameless, swaggering licentiousness, at 
once inelegant and inhuman. The influence of these writers was 
doubtless noxious, yet less noxious than it would have been had they 
been less depraved. The poison which they administered was so 
strong that it was, in no long time, rejected with nausea. None of 
them understood the dangerous art of associating images of unlawful 
pleasure with all that is endearing and ennobling. None of them was 
aware that a certain decorum is essential even to voluptuousness, that 
drapery may be more alluring than exposure, and that the imagina- 
tion may be far more powerfully moved by delicate hints which im- 
pel vi to exert itself, than by gross descriptions which it takes in pas- 
sively. 

The spirit of the Antipuritan reaction pervades almost the whole 
polite literature of the reign of Charles the Second. But the very 
quintessence of that spirit will be found in the comic drama. ‘The 
playhouses, shut by the meddling fanatic in the day of his power, 
were again crowded. ‘To their old attractions new and more power- 
ful attractions had been added. Scenery, dresses, and decorations, 
such as would now be thought mean or absurd, but such as would 
have been esteemed incredibly magnificent by those who, early in the 
seventeenth century, sate on the filthy benches of the Hope, or under. 
the thatched roof of the Rose, dazzled the eyes of the multitude. The 
fascination of sex was called in to aid the fascination of art: and the 
young spectator saw, with emotions unknown to the contemporaries 
of Shakspeare and Johnson, tender and sprightly heroines personated 
by lovely women. From the day on which the theatres were reopen- 
ed they became seminaries of vice; and the vice propagated itself. 
The profligacy of the representations soon drove away sober people. 
The frivolous and dissolute who remained required every year stronger 
and stronger stimulants. Thus the artists corrupted the spectators, 
and the spectators the artists, till the turpitude of the drama became 
such as must astonish all who are not aware that extreme relaxation - 
is the natural effect of extreme restraint, and that an age of hypoce: 
end is, in the regular course of things, followed by an age of impu- 

ence, 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 259 


_ Nothing is more characteristic of the times than the care with 
- which the poets contrived to put all their loosest verses into the 
mouths of women. The compositions in which the greateat license 
was taken were theepilogues. ‘They were almost always recited by 
favourite actresses; and nothing charmed the depraved audience so 
mucn as to hear lines grossly indecent repeated by a beautiful girl, 

who was supposed to have not yet lost her innocence.* 

_ Our theatre was indebted in that age for many plots and characters 
to Spain, to France, and to the old English masters: but whatever 
our dramatists touched they tainted. In their imitations the houses 
of Calderon’s stately and high-spirited Castilian gentlemen became 
sties of vice, Shakspeare’s Viola a procuress, Moliere’s Misanthrope a 
ravisher, Moliere’s Agnes an adulteress. Nothing could be so pure 
or so heroic but that it became foul and ignoble by transfusion 
through those foul and ignoble minds. 

Such was the state of the drama; and the drama was the depart- 
ment of polite literature in which a poet had the best chance of ob- 
taining a subsistence by his pen. The sale of books was so small that 
aman of the greatest name could hardly expect more than a pittance 
for the copyright of the best performance. There cannot be a strong- 
er instance than the fate of Dryden’s last production, the Fables. 
That volume was published when he was universally admitted to be 
the chief of living English poets. It contains about twelve thousand 
lines. The versification is admirable, the narratives and descriptions 
full of life. To this day Palamon and Arcite, Cymon and Iphigenia, 
‘Theodore and Honoria, are the delight both of critics and of school- 
boys. The collection includes Alexander’s Feast, the noblest ode in 
our language. For the copyright Dryden received two hundred and 
fifty pounds, less than in our days has sometimes been paid for two 
articles in a review.+ Nor does the bargain seem to have been a hard 
one. For the book went off slowly; and the second edition was not 
required till the author had been ten years in his grave. By writing 
for the theatre it was possible to earn a much larger sum with much 
less trouble. Southern made seven hundred pounds by one play.t 
Otway was raised from beggary to temporary affluence by the success 
‘of his Don Carlos. Shadwell cleared a hundred and thirty pounds 
by a single representation of the Squire of Alsatia.|| The conse- 
quence was that every man who had to live by his wit wrote plays, 
whether he had any internal vocation to write plays or not. It was 
thus with Dryden. As a satirist he has rivalled Juvenal. As a didactic 
poet he perhaps might, with care and meditation, have rivalled Lucre. 


k * Jeremy Collier has censured this odious practice with his usual force and 
eenness. 

+ The contrast will be found in Sir Walter Scott’s edition of Dryden. 

t See the Life of Southern, by Shiels. 

§ See Rochester’s Trial of the Poets. 

{ Some Account of the English Stage. 


7 


269 HISTOR’ OF ENGLAND. , 4 


tius. Of lyric poets he is, if not the most sublime, the most brilliant 
and spiritstirring. But nature, profuse to him in many rare gifts, 
had withheld from him the dramatic faculty. Nevertheless all the 
energies of his best years were wasted on dramatic composition. He 
had too much judgment not to be aware that in the power of exhibit- 
ing character by means of dialogue he was deficient. That deficiency 
he did his best to conceal, sometimes by surprising and amusing in- 
cidents, sometimes by stately declamation, sometimes by harmonious 
numbers, some imes by ribaldry but too well suited to the taste of a 
profane and licentious pit. Yet he never obtained any theatrical suc- 
cess equal to that which rewarded the exertions of some men far in- 
ferior to him in general powers. He thought himself fortunate if he 
cleared a hundred guineas by a play; a scanty remuneration, yet ap- 
parently larger than he could have earned in any other way by the 
same quantity of labour.* 

The recompense which the wits of that age could obtain from the 
public was so small, that they were under the necessity of eking out 
their incomes by levying contributions on the great. Every rich and 
goodnatured lord was pestered by authors with a mendicancy so im- 
portunate, and a flattery so abject, as may in our time seem incredible. 
The patron to whom a work was inscribed was expected to reward 
the writer with a purse of gold. The fee paid for the dedication of 
a book was often much larger than the sum which any publisher 
would give for the copyright. Books were therefore frequently print- 
ed merely that they might be dedicated. This traffic in praise pro- 
duced the effect which might have been expected. Adulation pushed 
to the verge, sometimes of nonsense, and sometimes of impiety, was 
not thought to disgrace a poet. Independence, veracity, selfrespect, 
were things not required by the world fromhim. In truth, he was 
in morals something between a pandar and a beggar. 

To the other vices which degraded the literary character was 
added, towards the close of the reign of Charles the Second, the 
most savage intemperance of party spirit. The wits, as a class, had 
been impelled by their old hatred of Puritanism to take the side of 
the court, and had been found useful allies. Dryden, in particular, 
had done good service to the government. His Absalom and Achi- 
tophel, the greatest satire of modern times had amazed the town, 
had made its way with unprecedented rapidity even into rural dis: 
tricts, and had, wherever it appeared, bitterly annoyed the Exclusion- 
ists, and raised the courage of the Tories. But we must not, in the 
admiration which we naturally feel for noble diction and versifica- 
tion, forget the great distinctions of good and evil. The spirit by which 
Dryden and several of his compeers were ‘at this time animated 
against the Whigs deserves to be called fiendish. The servile Judges 
and Sheriffs of those evil days could not shed blood as fast as the 


ee ee eS 


* Life of Southern, by Shiels. 


ites . mS 
Ri _ HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 261 


ts cried out for it. Calls for more victims, hideous jests on hang- 
ing, bitter taunts on those who, having stood by the King in the 
hour of danger, now advised him to deal mercifully and apis 
by his vanquished enemics, were publicly recited on the stage, and, 
that nothing might be wanting to the guilt and the shame, were re- 
cited by women, who, having long been taught to discard all modesty, 
were now taught to discard all compassion.* 

It is a remarkable fact that, while the lighter literature of England 
was thus becoming a nuisance and a national disgrace, the English 
genius was effecting in science a revolution which will, to the end of 
time, be reckoned among the highest achievements of the human 
intellect. Bacon had sown the good seed in a sluggish soil and an 
ungenial season. He had not expected an early crop, and in his last 

testament had solemniy bequeathed his fame to the next age. Dur- 
ing a whole generation his philosophy had, amidst tumults, wars, and. 
oscriptions, been slowly ripening in a few well constituted minds. 
While factions were struggling for dominion over each other, a small 
body of sages had turned away with benevolent disdain from the 
conflict, and had devoted themselves to the nobler work of extending 
the dominion of man over matter. As soon as tranquillity was re- 
stored, these teachers easily found attentive audience. For the dis- 
cipline through which the nation had passed had brought the public 
mind to a temper well fitted for the reception of the Verulamian 
doctrine. The civil troubles had stimulated the faculties of the 
educated classes, and had called forth a restless activity and an insa- 
tiable curiosity, such as had not before been known among us. Yet 
the effect of those troubles was that schemes of political and religious 
reform were generally regarded with suspicion and contempt. Dur- 
ing twenty years the chief employment of busy and ingenious men 
had been to frame constitutions with first magistrates, without first 
magistrates, with hereditary senates, with senates appointed by lot, 
with annual senates, with perpetual senates. In these plans nothing 
Was omitted. All the detail, all the nomenclature, all the ceremonial 
of the imaginary government was fully set forth, Polemarchs and 
Phylarchs, Tribes and Galaxies, the Lord Archon and the Lord 
Strategus. Which ballot boxes were to be green and which red, 
which balls were to be of gold and which of silver, which magis- 
trates were to wear hats and which black velvet caps with peaks, 
how the mace was to be carried and when the heralds were to uncov- 
er, these, and a hundred more such trifles, were gravely considered 
and arranged by men of no common capacity and learning.+ But 
the time for these visions had gone by; and, if any steadfast repub- 


* If any reader thinks my expressions too severe, I would advise him to read 


en's Epilogue to the Duke of Guise, and to observe that it was spoken by a 
an, 


_ + See particularly Harrington’s Oceana. 


3 ‘ 


262 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. : 


lican still continued to amuse himself with them, fear of public deris. 
ion and of a criminal information generally induced him to keep his 
fancies to himself. It was now unpopular and unsafe to mutter a 
word against the fundamental laws of the monarchy: but daring and 
ingenious men might indemnify themselves by treating with disdain 
what had lately been considered as the fundamental laws of nature. 
The torrent which had been dammed up in one channel rushed vio- 
lently into another. ‘The revolutionary spirit, ceasing to operate in 
politics, began to exert itself with unprecedented vigour and hardi- 
hood in every department of physics. The year 1660, the era of the 
restoration of the old constitution, is also the era from which dates the 
ascendency of the new philosophy. In that year the Royal Society, 
destined to be a chief agent in a long series of glorious and salutary 
reforms, began to exist.* In afew months experimental science be- 
came all the mode. ‘The transfusion of blood, the ponderation of air, 
the fixation of mercury, succeeded to that place in the public mind 
which had been lately occupied by the controversies of the Rota. 
Dreams of perfect forms of government made way for dreams of 
Wings with which men were to fly from the Tower to the Abbey, 
and of doublekeeled ships which were never to founder in the fiercest 
storm. All classes were hurried along by the prevailing sentiment. 
Cavalier and Roundhead, Churchman and Puritan, were for once 
allied. Divines, jurists, statesmen, nobles, princes, swelled the triumph 
of the Baconian philosophy. Poets sang with emulous fervour the 
approach of the golden age. Cowley, in lines weighty with thought 
and resplendent with wit, urged the chosen seed to take possession 
of the promised land fiowing with milk and honey, that land which 
their great deliverer and lawgiver had seen, as from the summit of 
Pisgah, but had not been permitted to enter.+ Dryden, with more 
zeal than knowledge, joined voice to the general acclamation to enter, 
and foretold things which neither he nor anybody else understood. 
The Royal Society, he predicted, would soon lead us to the extreme 
verge of the globe, and there delight us with a better view of the 
moon.{ Two able and aspiring prelates, Ward, Bishop of Salisbury, 
and Wilkins, Bishop of Chester, were conspicuous among the leaders 
of the movement. Its history was eloquently written by a younger 
divine, who was rising to high distinction in his profession, ‘Thomas 
Sprat, afterwards Bishop of Rochester. Both Chief Justice Hale and 
Lord Keeper Guildford stole some hours from the business of their 
courts to write on hydrostatics. Indeed it was under the immediate 


* See Sprat’s History of the Royal Society. 
+ Cowley’s Ode to the Royal Society. 
‘Then we upon the globe’s last verge shall go, 
And view the ocean leaning on the sky; 
From thence our rolling neighbours we shall know, 
And on the lunar world securely pry.’ 
Annus Mirabilis, 164, 


See, - HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 268 


direction of Guildford that the first barometers ever exposed to sale 
in London were constructed.* Chemistry divided, for a time, with 
wine and love, with the stage and the gaming table, with the intrigues 
of a courtier and the intrigues of a demagogue, the attention of the 
fickle Buckingham. Rupert has the credit of having invented mez- 
zotinto; from him is named that curious bubble of glass which has 
long amused children and puzzled philosophers. Charles himself had 
a laboratory at Whitehall, and was far more active and attentive there 
than at the council board. It was almost necessary to the character 
of a fine gentleman to have something to say about air pumps and 
telescopes; and even fine ladies, now and then, thought it becoming 
to affect a taste for science, went in coaches and six to visit the 
Gresham curiosities, and broke forth into cries of delight at finding 
that a magnet really attracted a needle, and that a microscope really 
made a fly look as large as a sparrow.+ . 
In this, as in every great stir of the human mind, there was doubt- 
less something which might well move a smile. It is the universal 
law that whatever pursuit, whatever’ doctrine, becomes fashionable, 
shall lose a portion of that dignity which it had possessed while it 
was confined to a small but earnest minority, and was loved for its 
own sake alone. It is true that the follies of some persons who, 
‘without any real aptitude for science, professed a passion for it, fur- 
nished matter of contemptuous mirth to a few malignant satirists who 
belonged to the preceding generation, and were not disposed to un- 
learn the lore of their youth.{ But it is not less true that the great 
work of interpreting nature was performed by the English of that 
age as it had never before been performed in any age by any nation. | 
The spirit of Francis Bacon was abroad, a spirit admirably com- 
pounded of audacity and sobriety. There was a strong persuasion 
that the whole world was full of secrets of high moment to the hap- 
piness of man, and that man had, by his Maker, been entrusted with 
the key which, rightly uscd, would give access to them. There was 
at the same time a conviction that in physics it was impossible to 
arrive at the knowledge of general laws except by the careful obser- 
vation of particular facts. Deeply impressed with these great truths, 
the professors of the new philosophy applied themselves to their task, 
and, before a quarter of a century had expired, they had given ample 
earnest of what has since been achieved. Already a reform of agri- 
culture had been commenced. New vegetables were cultivated. New 
Implements of husbandry were employed. New manures were ap- 


-* North’s Life of Guildford. 
+ Pepys’s Diary, May 30, 1667. 

_+ Butler was, I think, the only man of real genius who, between the Restora- 
tion and the Revolution showed a bitter enmity to the new philosophy, as it 
oo called. See the Satire on the Royal Society, and the Elephant in the 


“s 


ase. | 
3” ~ 
- 4 ‘ - 
2° by See 
ea 
& 


264 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. : iy 
plied to the soil.* Evelyn had, under the formal sanction of th 
Royal Society, given instruction to his countrymen in planting 
Temple, in his intervals of leisure, had tried many experiments i 
horticulture, and had proved that many delicate fruits, the native 
of more favoured climates, might, with the help of art, be grow 
on English ground. Medicine, which in France was still in abjec 
bondage, and afforded an inexhaustible subject of just méicule t 
Moliere, had in England become an experimental and progressiv 
science, and every day made some new advance in defiance of Hi, 
pocrates and Galen. The attention of speculative men had been, fo 
the first time, directed to the important subject of sanitary polic 
The great plague of 1665 induced them to consider with care th 
defective architecture, draining, and ventilation of the capital. Th 
great fire of 1666 afforded an opportunity for effecting extensive in 
provements. The whole matter was diligently examined by the Roy: 
Society; and to the suggestions of that body must be partly attribute 
the changes which, though far short of what the public welfare r 
quired, yet made a wide difference between the new and the ol 
London, and probably put a final close to the ravages of pestilenc 
in our country.+ At the same time one of the founders of the Society 
Sir William Petty, created the science of political arithmetic, the hun: 
ble but indispensable handmaid of political philosophy. No kingdor 
of nature was left unexplored. To that period belong the chemic: 
discoveries of Boyle, and the earliest botanical researches of Sloan« 
It was then that Ray made a new classification of birds and fishe: 
and that the attention of Woodward was first drawn towards fossil 
and shells. One after another phantoms which haunted the worl 
through ages of darkness fled before the light. Astrology and alehy 
my became jests. Soon there was scarcely a country in which som 
of the old Quorum did not smile contemptuously when an old woma: 
was brought before them for riding on broomsticks or giving catt| 
the murrain. But it was in those noblest and most arduous depar' 
ments of knowledge in which induction and mathematical demon 
stration codperate for the discovery of truth, that the English geniu 
won in that age the most memorable triumphs. John Wallis place 
the whole system of statics on a new foundation. Edmund Halle 
investigated the properties of the atmosphere, the ebb and flow of th 
sea, the laws of magnetism, and the course of the comets; nor did h 
shrink from toil, peril and exile in the cause of science. While he 
on the rock of Saint Helena, mapped the constellations of the souther! 
hemisphere, our national observatory was rising at Greenwich: an 
John Flamsteed, the first Astronomer Royal, was commencing tha 
long series of observations which is never mentioned without respec 


* The eagerness with which the agriculturists of that age tried experiment 
and introduced improvements is well described by Aubrey. See the Natura 
History of Wiltshire, 1685, ; 

+ Sprat’s History of the Royal Society. 5 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 265 


and gratitude in any part of the globe. But the glory of these men, 
eminent as they were, is cast into the shade by the transcendent lustre 
of one immortal name. In Isaac Newton two kinds of intellectual 
power, which have little in common, and which are not often found 
together in a very high degree of vigour, but which nevertheless are 
equally necessary in the most sublime departments of physics, were 
united as they have never been united before or since. There may 
have been minds as happily constituted as his for the cultivation of 
pure mathematical science: there may have been minds as happily 
constituted for the cultivation of science purely experimental; but in 
no other mind have the demonstrative faculty and the inductive 
faculty coexisted in such supreme excellence and perfect harmony. 
Perhaps in the days of Scotists and Thomists even his intellect might 
have run to waste, as many intellects ran to waste which were infe- 
rior only to his. Happily the spirit of the age on which his lot was 
east, gave the right direction to his mind; and his mind reacted with 
tenfold force on the spirit of the age. In the year 1685 his fame, 
though splendid, was only dawning; but his genius was in the merid- 
jan. His great work, that work which effected a revolution in the 
most important provinces of natural philosophy, had been completed, 
but was not yet published, and was just about to be submitted to the 
consideration of the Royal Society. 
_ It isnot very easy to explain why the nation which was so far before 
its neighbours in science should in art have been far behind them. Yet 
such was the fact. It was true that in architecture, an art which is 
half a science, an art in which none but a geometrician can excel, an 
art which has no standard of grace but what is directly or indirectly 
dependent on utility, an art of which the creations derive a part, at least, 
of their majesty from mere bulk, our country could boast of one truly 
great man, Christopher Wren; and the fire which laid London in ruins 
had given him an opportunity, unprecedented in modern history, of 
‘displaying his powers. The austere beauty of the Athenian portico, 
the gloomy sublimity of the Gothic arcade, he was like almost all his 
contemporaries, incapable of emulating, and perhaps incapable of ap- 
preciating; but no man born on our side of the Alps, has imitated with 
80 much success the magnificence of the palacelike churches of Italy. 
Even the superb Lewis has left to posterity no work which can bear 
acomparison with Saint Paul’s. But at the close of the reign of Charles 
the Second there was not a single English painter or statuary whose 
Tame is now remembered. ‘This sterility is somewhat mysterious; 
for painters and statuaries were by no means a despised or an ill pai 
‘class. Their social position was at least as high as at present. Their 
gains, when compared with the wealth of the nation and with the re- 
Muneration of other descriptions of intellectual labour, were even 
targer than at present. Indeed the munificent patronage which was 
extended to artists drew them toour shoresin multitudes. Lely, who 
has preserved to us the rich curls, the full lips, and the languishing 


266 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


eyes of the frail beauties celebrated by Hamilton, was a Westphalian. 
He had died in 1680, having long lived splendidly, having received 
the honour of knighthood, and having accumulated a good estate out 
of the fruits of his skill. His noble collection of drawings and pictures 
was, after his decease, exhibited by the royal permission in the 
Banqueting House at Whitehall, and was sold by auction for the al- 
most incredible sum of twenty-six thousand pounds, a sum which 
bore a greater proportion to the fortunes of the rich men of that day 
than a hundred thousand pounds would bear to the fortunes of the 
rich men of our day.* Lely was succeeded by his countryman God- 
frey Kneller, who was made first a knight and then a baronet, and 
who, after keeping up a sumptuous establishment, and after losing 
much money by unlucky speculations, was still able to bequeath a 
large tortune to his family. The two Vandeveldes, natives of Holland, 
had been tempted by English liberality to settle here, and had pro. 
duced for the King and his nobles some of the finest sea pieces in the 
world. Another Dutchman, Simon Varelst, painted glorious sun- 
flowers and tulips for prices such as had never before been known. 
Verrio, a Neapolitan, covered ceilings and staircases with Gorgons 
and Muses, Nymphs and: Satyrs, Virtues and Vices, Gods quaffing 
nectar, and laurelied princes riding in triumph. The income which 
he derived from his performances enabled him to keep one of the 
most expensive tables in England. For his pieces at Windsor alone 
he received seven thousand pounds, a sum then sufficient tomake a 
gentleman of moderate wishes perfectly easy for life, a sun greatly 
exceeding all that Dryden, during a literary life of forty years, 
obtained from the booksellers.{ Verrio’s assistant and successor, Lewis 
Laguerre, came from France. The two most celebrated sculptors of 
that day were also foreigners. Cibber, whose pathetic emblems of 
Fury and Melancholy still adorn Bedlam, was a Dane. Gibbons, to 
whose graceful fancy and delicate touch many of our palaces, colleges, 
and churches owe their finest decorations, was a Dutchman. Even 
the designs for the coin were made by French artists. Indeed, it was 
not till the reign of George the Second that our country could glory 
in a great painter; and George the Third was on the throne before she 
had reason to be proud of any of her sculptors. 

It is time that this description of the England which Charles the 
Second governed should draw to a close. Yet one subject of the 
highest moment still remains untouched. Nothing has yet been said 
of the great body of the people, of those who held the ploughs, who 
tended the oxen, who toiled at the looms of Norwich, and squared the 
Portland stone for Saint Paul’s. Nor can very much be said. The 


* Walpole’s Ancedotes of Painting; London Gazette, May 31, 1683; North’s 
Life of Guildford. ’ 

+ The great prices paid to Varelst and Verrio arc mentioned in Walpole’s 
Anecdotes of Painting. 


ie 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. a ae, 


“most numerous class is precisely the class respecting which we 

have the most meagre information. In those times philanthropists did 
not yet regard it as a sacred duty, nor had demagogues yet found it a 
lucrative trade, to talk and write about the distress of the labourer. 
History was too much occupied with courts and camps to spare a 
line for the hut of the peasant or the garret of the mechanic. The 

press now often sends forth in a day a greater quantity of dis- 
cussion and declamation about the condition of the working man than 
was published during the twenty-eight years which elapsed between 
the Restoration and the Revolution. But it would be a great error to 
infer from the increase of complaint that there has been any increase 
of misery. 

The great criterion of the state of the common people is the amount 
of their wages; and as four-fifths of the common people were in the 
seventeenth century, employed in agriculture, it is especially im- 
portant to ascertain what were then the wages of agricultural industry. 
On this subject we have the means of arriving at conclusions 
sufficiently exact for our purpose. 

Sir William Petty, whose mere assertion carries great weight, in- 
forms us that a labourer was by no means in the lowest state who 
received for a day’s work fourpence with food, or eightpence without 
food. Four shillingsa week therefore were, according to Petty’s calcu- 
lation, fair agricultural wages.* 

That this calculation was not remote from the truth we have 
abundant proof. About the beginning of the year 1685 the justices 

of Warwickshire, in the exercise of a power entrusted to them by an 
Act of Elizabeth, fixed, at their quarter sessions, a scale of wages for 
the county, and notified that every employer who gave more than the 
authorised sum, and every working man who received more, would 
be liable to punishment. The wages of the common agricultural 
labourer, from March to September, were fixed at the precise amount 
Mentioned by Petty, namely four shillings a week without food. 
From September to March the wages were to be only three and six- 
‘pence a week. + 
But in that age, as in ours, the earnings of the peasant were very 
different in different parts of the kingdom. The wages of Warwick- 
shire were probably about the average, and those of the counties near 
the Scottish border below it: but there were more favoured districts. 
In the same year, 1685, a gentleman of Devonshire, named Richard 
Dunning, published a small tract, in which he described the condition 
of the poor of that county. That he understood his subject well it 
18 Impossible to doubt; for a few months later his work was reprinted, 
and was, by the magistrates assembled in quarter sessions at Exeter, 
Strongly recommended to the attention of all parochial officers. 


_ * Petty’s Political Arithmetic. + Stat. 5 Eliz. ce. 4; Archeologia, vol. xi. 


268 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


According to him, the wages of the Devonshire peasant were, without 
food, about five shillings a week.* 

Still better was the condition of the labourer in the neighbourhood 
of Bury Saint Edmund’s. The magistrates of Suffolk met there in 
the spring of 1682 to fix a rate of wages, and resolved that, where the 
labourer was not boarded, he should have five shillings a week in 
winter, and six in summer.+ 

In 1661 the justices at Chelmsford had fixed the wages of the 
Essex labourer, who was not boarded, at six shillings in winter and 
seven in summer. This seems to have been the highest remuneration 
given in the kingdom for agricultural labour between the Restoration 
and the Revolution; and it is to be observed that, in the year in which 
this order was made, the necessaries of life were immoderately dear. 
Wheat was at seventy shillings the quarter, which would even now 
be considered as almost a famine price. t 

These facts are in perfect accordance with another fact which 
seems to deserve consideration. It is evident that, in a country where 
no man can be compelled to become a soldier, the ranks of an army 
cannot be filled if the government offers much less than the wages 
of common rustic labour. At present the pay and beer money of a 
private in a regiment of the line amount to seven shillings and seven- 
pence a week. This stipend, coupled with the hope of a pension, 
does not attract the English youth in sufficient numbers; and it is 
found necessary to supply the deficiency by enlisting largely from 
among the poorer population of Munster and Connaught. The pay 
of the private foot soldier in 1685 was only four shillings and eight- 
pence a week; yet it is certain that the government in that year found 
no difficulty in obtaining many thousands of English recruits at very 
short notice. The pay of the private foot soldier in the army of the 
Commonwealth had been seven shillings a week, thatis to say, as much 
as a corporal received under Charles the Second;§ and seven shillings” 
a week had been found sufficient to fill the ranks with men decidedly 
superior to the generality of the people. On the whole, therefore, it 
seems reasonable to conclude that, in the reign of Charles the Second, 
the ordinary wages of the peasant did not exceed four shillings a 
week; but that, in some parts of the kingdom, five shillings, six shil- 
lings, and, during the summer months, even seven shillings were 
paid. At present a district where a labouring man earns only seven 
shillings a week is thought to be in a state shocking to humanity. 
The average is very much higher; and in prosperous counties, the 
weekly wages of husbandmen amount to twelve, fourteen, and even 


* Plain. and easy Method showing how the office of Overseer of the Poor may 
be managed, by Richard Dunning; ist edition, 1685, 2d edition, 1686. 

+ Cullum’s History of Hawsted, 

¢ Ruggles on the Poor. 

§ See, in Thurloe’s State Papers, the memorandum of the Dutch Deputies, 


dated August 2-12, 1653, 
is 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 269 


sen shillings. The remuneration of workmen employed in manu: 
etures has always been higher than that of the tillers of the soil. 
In the year 1680, a member of the House of Commons remarked that 
the high wages paid in this country make it impossible for our tex- 
tures to maintain a competition with the produce of the Indian 
looms. An English mechanic, he said, instead of slaving like a na- 
tive of Bengal for a piece of copper, exacted a shilling a day.* Other 
evidence is extant, which proves that a shilling a day was the pay to 
which the English manufacturer then thought himself entitled, but 
that he was often forced to work for less. The common people of 
‘that age were not in the habit of meeting for public discussion, of 
haranguing, or of petitioning Parliament. No newspaper pleaded 
their cause. It was in rude rhyme that their love and hatred, their 
_exultation had their distress, found utterance. A great part of their 
history is to be learned only from their ballads. One’of the most re- 
markable of the popular lays chaunted about the streets of Norwich 
and Leeds in the time of Charles the Second can still be read on the 
original broadside. It is the vehement and bitter cry of labour 
5 capital. It describes the good old times when every artisan 
employed in the woollen manufacture lived as well asa farmer. But 
those times were past. Sixpence a day was now all that could be 
earned by hard labour at the loom. If the poor complained that they 
could not live on such a pittance, they were told that they were free 
to take it or leave it. For so miserable a recompense were the pro- 
ducers of wealth compelled to toil, rising early and lying down late, 
_ while the master clothier, eating, sleeping, and idling, became rich 
by their exertions. A shilling a day, the poet declares, is what the 
weaver would have if justice were done.| We may therefore con. 
clude that, in the generation which preceded the Revolution, a work- 


_*The orator was Mr. John Basset, member for Barnstaple. See Smith’s 
Memoirs of Wool, chapter Ixviii. ; 
_,t This ballad isin the British Museum. The precise year is not given; but 
_ the imprimatur of Roger Lestrange fixes the date sufficiently for my purpose. 
ei quote some of the lines. The master clothier is introduced speaking as 
— Tolows:— 
> i ‘In former ages we used to give, 
Atg So that our workfolks like farmers did live; 
But the times are changed, we will make them know. 
%* * * * * * 


** We will make them.to work hard for sixpence a day, 
Though a shilling they deserve if they had their just pay; 
If at all they murmur and say ‘tis too small, 
We bid them choose whether they’li work at all. 
And thus we do gain all our wealth and estate, 
By many poor men that work early and late. 
Then hey for the clothing trade! It goes on brave; 

ee We scorn for to toyl and moyl, nor yet to slave. 

a Our workmen do work hard, but we live at ease, 

We go when we will, and we come when we please.” 


270 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


man employed in the great staple manufacture of England thought 


himself fairly paid if he gained six shillings a week. 

It may here be noticed that the practice of setting children prema- 
turely to work, a practice which the state, the legitimate protector of 
those who cannot protect themselves, has, in our time, wisely and 
humanely interdicted, prevailed in the seventeenth century to an ex- 
tent which, when compared with the extent of the manufacturing 
system, seems almost incredible. At Norwich, the chief seat of the 
clothing trade, a little creature of six years old was thought fit for 
labour. Several writers of that time, and among them some who 


were considered as eminently benevolent, mention, with exultation, — 


the fact that, in that single city, boys and girls of very tender age 
created wealth exceeding what was necessary for their own subsist- 
ence by twelve thousand pounds a year.* ‘The more carefully we 
examine the history of the past, the more reason shall we find to dis- 


sent from those who imagine that our age has been fruitful of new 


social evils. The truth is that the evils are, with scarcely an excep- 
tion, old. That which is new is the intelligence which discerns and 
the humanity which remedies them. 

When we pass from the weavers of cloth to a different class of 
artisans, our enquiries will still lead us to nearly the same conclu- 
sions. During several generations, the Commissioners of Greenwich 
Hospital have kept a register of the wages paid to different classes of 
workmen who have been employed in the repairs of the building 
From this valuable record it appears that, in the course of.a hundred 
and twenty years, the daily earnings of the bricklayer have risen 
from half a crown to four and tenpence, those of the mason from 
half a crown to five and threepence, those of the carpenter from half 
a crown to five and fivepence, and those of the plumber from three 
shillings to five and sixpence. 

It seems clear, therefore, that the wages of labour, estimated in 
money, were, in 1685, not more than nalf of what they now are, and 
there were few articles important to the working man of which the 
price was not, in 1685, more than half of what it nowis.. Beer was 
undoubtedly much cheaper in that age than at present Meat was 
also cheaper, but was still so dear that hundreds of thousands of 
families scarcely knew the taste of it.t In the cost of wheat there 
has been very little change. The avérage price of the quarter, dur- 
ing the last twelve years of Charles the Second, was fifty shillings 


* Chamberlayne’s state of England, Petty’s Political Arithmetic. cha 
viii; Dunning’s Plain and asy Method; Firmin’s Proposition for the Em 


ploying of the Poor. It ought to be observed that Firmin was an eminent 


philanthropist. 

+ King in his Natural and Political Conclusions roughly estimated the com- 
mon people of England at 880,000 families. Of these families 440,000, acccord- 
ing to him, ate animal food twice a week. The remaining 440,000, ate it not at 
all, or at most not oftener than once a week. f 


ty. 
,, 43 f 
/ , 
rt 
ys 


| 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 271 


_ Bread, therefore, such as isnow given to the inmates of a workhouse, 


* 
» 


was then seldom seen, even on the trencher of a yeoman or of a shop- 
keeper. The great majority of the nation lived almost entirely on 
rye, barley, and oats. 

The produce of tropical countries, the produce of the mines, the 
produce of machinery, was positively dearer than at present.. Among 
the commodities for which the labourer would have had to pay 
higher in 1685 than his posterity now pay were sugar, salt, coals, can- 
ales, soap, shoes, stockings, and generally all articles of clothing and all 
articles of bedding. It may be added, that the old coats and blankets 
would have been, not only more costly, but less serviceable than the 


~ modern fabrics. 


It must be remembered that those labourers who were able to 
maintain themselves and their families by means of wages were not 
the most necessitous members of the community. Beneath them lay 


is large class which could not subsist without some aid from the par- 


ish. There can hardly be a more important test of the condition of » 
the common people than the ratio which the class bears to the whole 
society. At present, the men, women, and children who receive re- 
lief appear from the official returns to be, in bad years one tenth of 
the inhabitants of England, and, in good years, one thirteenth. 


Gregory King estimated them in his time at about a fourth; and 


this estimate, which all our respect for his authority will scarcely 
prevent us from calling extravagant, was pronounced by Davenant 
eminently judicious. 

We are not quite without the means of forming an estimate for 


2 ourselves. The poor rate was undoubtedly the heaviest tax borne 


~~ ° 


by our ancestors in those days. It was computed, in the reign of 
Charles the Second, at near seven hundred thousand pounds a year, 
much more than the produce either of the excise or of the customs, 
and little less than half the entire revenue of the crown. The poor 
rate went on increasing rapidly, and appears to have risen in a short 


time to between eight and nine hundred thousand a year, that is to 


say, to one sixth of what it now is. The population was less than a 
third of what it now is. The minimum of wages, estimated in 


money, was half of what it now is; and we can therefore hardly 


suppose that the average allowance made to a pauper can have been 
more than half of what it now is. It seems to follow that the propor- 


_ tion of the English people have received parochial relief then must 
_ have been larger than the proportion which receives relief now. It 


is good to speak on such questions with diffidence; but it has cer- 
tainly never yet been proved that pauperism was a heavy burden or 


@ less serious social evil during the last quarter of the seventh cen- 


tury than it is in our own time.* 


-* Fourteenth Report of the Poor Law Commissioners, Appendix B. No. 2, 


_ Appendix C. No. 1, 1848, Of the two estimates of the poor rate mentioned in the 


-~ 979 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


j P ‘ 
In one respect it must be admitted that the progress of civilization ~ 
has diminished the physical comforts of a portion of the poorest 
class. It has already been mentioned that, before the Revolution, 
many thousands of square miles, now enclosed and cultivated, were 
marsh, forest, and heath. Of this wild land much was, by law, 
common, and much of what was not common by law was worth so 
little that the proprietors suffered it to be common in fact. In such” 
a tract, squatters and trespassers were tolerated to an extent now 
unknown. The peasant who dwelt there could, at little or no 
charge, procure occasionally some partial addition to his hard fare, — 
and provide himself with fuel for the winter. He kept a flock of geese 
on what is now an orchard rich with apple blossoms. He snared 
wild fowl on the fen which has long since been drained and divided 
into corn-fields and turnip-fields. He cut turf among the furze 
bushes on the moor which is now a meadow bright with clover and 
renowned for butter and cheese. The progress of agriculture and 
the increase of population necessarily deprived him of these privi- 
leges. But against this disadvantage of a long list of advantages is to 
to be set off. Of the blessings which civilisation and philosophy 
bring with them a large proportion is common to all ranks, and 
would, if withdrawn, be missed as painfully by the labourer as by 
the peer. The market-place which the rustic can now reach with 
his cart in an hour was, a hundred and sixty years ago, a day’s jour- 
ney from him. The street which now affords to the artisan, durin 
the whole night a secure, a convenient, and a brilliantly lighte 
walk was, a hundred and sixty years ago, so dark after sunset that 
he could not have been able to see his hand, so ill paved that he 
would have run constant risk of breaking his neck, and so ill- 
watched that he would have been in imminent danger of being 
knocked down and plundered of his small earnings. Every bricklayer 
who falls from a scaffold, every sweeper of a crossing who is run 
over by a carriage, may now have his wounds dressed and his limbs 
set with a skill such as, a hundred and sixty years ago, all the wealth — 
of a great lord like Ormond, or a merchant prince like Clayton, could 
not have purchased. Some frightful diseases have been extirpated 
by science; and some have been banished by police. The term of 
human life has been lengthened over the whole kingdom, and espe- 


text one was formed by Arthur Moore, the other, some years later, by Richard 
Dunning. Moore’s estimate will be found in Davenant’s Essay on Ways and 
Means; Dunning’s in Sir Frederic Eden’s valuable work on the poor. Kingand ~ 
Davenant estimate the paupers and beggars in 1696, at the incredible number of — 
1,330,000 out of a population of 5,500,000. In 1846 the number of persons who 
received relief appears from the official returns to have been only 1,332,089 out 
of a population of about 17,000,000. It ought also to be observed that, in those 
returns, a pauper must very often be reckoned more than once. he * 
I would advise the reader to consult De Foe’s pamphlet entitled Bo e 
Alms no Charity,” and the Greenwich tables which will be found in Mr. M’Cul- 3 
loch’s Commercial Dictionary under the head Prices. Y 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. | a73 


cially in the towns. The year 1685 was not accounted sickly; yet in 

_ the year 1685 more than one in twenty three of the inhabitants of 

the capital died.* At present only one inhabitant of the capital 

~ in forty dies annually. ‘The difference in salubrity between the Lon- 

don of the nineteenth century and the London of the seventeenth 

century is very far greater than the difference between London in an 
ordinary year and London in a year of cholera. 

Still more important is the benefit which all orders of society, and 
especially the lower orders, have derived from the mollifying influ- 
ence of civilisation on the national character. The groundwork of 
that character has indeed been the same through many generations, 

‘in the sense in which the groundwork of the character of an individ- 
“ual may be said to be the same when he is a rude and thoughtless 
schoolboy and when he is a refined and accomplished man. It is 
pleasing to reflect that the public mind of England has softened 
while it has ripened, and that we have, in the course of ages, become, 
not only a wiser, but also a kinder people. There is scarcely a page 
of the history or lighter literature of the seventeenth century which 
‘does not contain some proof that our ancestors were less humane than 

_ their posterity. The discipline of workshops, of schools, of private 
families, though not more efficient than at present, was infinitely 
harsher. Masters, well born and bred, were in the habit of beating 
their servants. Pedagogues knew no way of imparting knowledge 
‘but by beating their pupils. Husbands, of decent station, were not 
ashamed to beat their wives. The implacability of hostile fac- 
tions was such as we can scarcely conceive. Whigs were disposep 
to murmur because Stafford was -suffered to die without seeing his 
bowels burned before his face. Tories reviled and insulted Russell 
as his coach passed from the Tower to the scaffoid in Lincoln’s Inn 
Fields.+ As little mercy was shown by the populace fo sufferers of 
ahumbler rank. If an offender was put into the pillory, it was well if 
he escaped with life from the shower of brickbats and paving stones. t 
If he was tied to the cart’s tail, the crowd pressed round him, im- 
ploring the hangman to give it the fellow well, and make him howl.§ 
Gentlemen arranged parties of pleasure to Bridewell on court days 
_ for the purpose of seeing the wretched women who beat hemp 
there whipped. A man pressed to death for refusing to plead, a 

_ woman burned for coining, excited less sympathy than is now felt for 

' agalled horse or an overdriven ox. Fights compared with which a 
_ boxing-match is a refined and humane spectacle were among the 
_ favourite diversions of a large part of the town. Multitudes assem- 
bled to see gladiators hack each other to pieces with deadly weapons, 


*The deaths were 23,222. Petty’s Political Arithmetic. 
2 + Burnet, i. 560. 
Muggleton’s Acts of the Witnesses of the Spirit. 
_ §Tom Brown describes such a scene in lines which I do not venture to quote, 
_ { Ward’s London Spy. 


274. HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


and shouted with delight when one of the combatants lost a finger or 
aneye. The prisons were hells on earth, seminaries of every crime and 
of every disease. At the assizes the lean and yellow culprits brought 
with them from their cells to the dock an atmosphere of stench and 
pestilence which sometimes avenged them signally on bench, bar, and 
jury. Buton all this misery society looked with profound indiffer- 
ence. Nowhere could be found that sensitive and restless compas- 
sion which has, in our time, extended a powerful protection to the 
factory child, to the Hindoo widow, to the negro slave, which pries 
into the stores and watercasks of every emigrant ship, which winces 
at every lash laid on the back of a drunken soldier, which will not 
suffer the thief in the hulks to be ill fed or overworked, and which 
has repeatedly endeavoured to save the life even of the murderer. It is 
true that compassion ought, like all other feelings, to be under the 
government of reason, and has, for want of such government, pro- 
duced some ridiculous and some deplorable effects. But the more 
we study the annals of the past, the more shall we rejoice that we 
live in a merciful age, in an age in which cruelty is abhorred, and in 
which pain, even when deserved, is inflicted reluctantly and from a 
sense of duty. Every class doubtless has gained largely by this 
great moral change: but the class which has gained most is the poor- 
est, the most dependent, and the most defenceless. 

The general effect of the evidence which has been submitted to the 
reader seems hardly to admit of doubt. Yet, in spite of evidence, 
many will still image to themselves the England of the Stuarts as a 
more pleasant country than the England in which we live. It may 
at first sight seem strange that society, while constantly moving for- 
ward with eager speed, should be constantly looking backward with 
tender regret. But these two propensities, inconsistent as they may 
appear, can easily be resolved into the same principle. Both spring 
from our impatience of the state in which we actually are. That 
impatience, while it stimulates us to surpass preceding generations, 
disposes us to overrate their happiness. It is, in some sense, unrceason- 
able and ungrateful in us to be constantly discontented with a con-~ 
dition which is constantly improving. But, in truth, there is con- 
stant improvement precisely because there is constant discontent. If 
we were perfectly satisfied with the present, we should cease to con- 
trive, to labour, and to save with a view to the future. And it is 
natural that, being dissatisfied with the present, we should form a too 
favourable estimate of the past. 

In truth we are under a deception similar to that which misleads 
the traveller in the Arabian desert. Beneath the caravan all is dry 
and bare: but far in advance, and far in the rear, is the semblance of © 
refreshing waters. The pilgrims hasten forward and find nothing but 
sand where an hour before they had seen a lake. They turn their 
eyes and see alake where, an hour before, they were toiling through 
sand. A similar illusion seems to haunt nations through every stage 


7 


a 


. ~- - — ~ — 


i HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 25 
of the long progress from poverty and barbarism to the highest de- 


' grees of opulence and civilisation. But if we resolutely chase the 


‘mirage backward, we shall find it recede before us into the regions of 
fabulous antiquity. It is now the fashion to place the golden age of 


England in times when noblemen were destitute of comforts the want 
of which would he intolerable to a modern footman, when farmers 
and shopkeepers breakfasted on loaves the very sight of which would 


 yaise a riot in a modern workhouse, when to have a clean shirt once 


_ a week was a privilege reserved for the higher class of gentry, when 
men died faster in the purest country air tlfin they now die in the 


most pestilential lanes of our towns, and men died faster in the lanes 
of our towns than they now die on the coast of Guiana. We too shall, 


in our turn, be outstripped, and in our turn be envied. It may well 


be, in the twentieth century, that the peasant of Dorsetshire may think 
himself miserably paid with twenty shillings a week; that the car- 


 penter at Greenwich may receive ten shillings a day; that labouring 


_ men may be as little used to dine without meat as they noware to 


eat rye breatl; that sanitary police and medical discoveries may have 
added several more years to the average length of human life; that 


* humerous comforts and luxuries which are now unknown, or con- 


fined to afew, may be within the reach of every diligent and thrifty 


working man. And yet it may then be the mode to assert that the 


increase of wealth and the progress of science have benefited the few 
_ at the expense of the many, and to talk of the reign of Queen Victoria 
_ as the time when England was truly merry England, when all classes 

were bound together by brotherly sympathy, when the rich did not 


ian the faces of the poor, and when the poor did not envy the splen- 
dour of the rich. 


° See 


CHAPTER IY. 


THE death of King Charles the Second took the nation by surprise. 
His frame was naturally strong, and did not appear to have suffered 
from excess. He had always been mindful of his health even in his 


_ pleasures; and his habits were such as promise a long life and a 


robust oldage. Indolent as he was on all occasions which required 
tension of the mind, he was active and persevering in bodily exercise. 
He had, when young, been renowned as a tennis player,* and was, 
_ €ven in the decline of life, an indefatigable walker. His ordinary 
pace was such that those who were admitted to the honour of his 
society found it difficult to keep up with him. He rose early, and 
generally passed three or four hours a day in the open air. He might 
_ be seen, before the dew was off the grass in St. James’s Park, strid- 
_ Ing among the trees, playing with his spaniels, and flinging corn to his 


* Pepys’s Diary, Dec. 28, 1663, Sept. 2, 1667, 


not 


[76 - HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


ducks; and these exhibitions endeared him to the common people, - 
who always love to see the great unbend.* at ie 
At length, towards the close of the year 1684, he was prevented, by 
aslight attack of what was supposed to be gout, from rambling as 
usual. He now spent his mornings in his laboratory, where he amused 
himself with experiments on the properties of mercury. His temper 
seemed to have suffered from confinement. He had no apparent 
cause for disquiet. His kingdom was tranquil: he was not in press- 
ing want of money: his power was greater than it had ever been: the 
party which had long thwarted him had been beaten down; but the 
cheerfulness which had supported him against adverse fortune had 
vanished in this season of prosperity. A trifle now sufficed to de- 
press those elastic spirits which had borne up against defeat, exile, 
and penury. His-irritation frequently showed itself by looks and — 
words such as could hardly have been expected from a man so 
eminently distinguished by good humour and good breeding. It was 
not supposed however that his constitution was seriously impaired.+ 
His palace had seldom presented a gayer or a more scandalous ap- 
earance than on the evening of Sunday the first of February 1685.{ 
ome grave persons who had gone thither, after the fashion of that 
age, to pay their duty to their sovereign, and who had expected that, 
on such a day, his court would wear a decent aspect, were struck 
with astonishment and horror. The great gallery of Whitehall, an 
admirable relic of the magnificence of the Tudors, was crowded with 
revellers and gamblers. The king sate there chatting and toying with 
three women, whose charms were the boast, and whose vices were the 
disgrace, of three nations. Barbara Palmer, Duchess of Cleveland, 
was there, no longer young, but still retaining some traces of that 
superb and voluptuous loveliness which twenty years before overcame 
the hearts of all men. There too was the Duchess of Portsmouth, 
whose soft and infantine features were lighted up with the vivacity 
of France. Hortensia Mancini, Duchess of Mazarin, and niece of the 
great Cardinal, completed the group. She had been early removed 
from her native Italy to the court where her uncle was supreme. His — 
power and her own attractions had drawn a crowd of illustrious 
suitors round her. Charles himself, during his exile, had sought her 
hand in vain. No gift of nature or of fortune seemed to be wanting 
to her. Her face was beautiful with the rich beauty of the South, 
her understanding quick, her manners graceful, her rank exalted, her 
possessions immense; but her ungovernable passions had turned all 
these blessings into curses. She had found the misery of an ill as-— 


* Burnet, i, 606; Spectator, No. 462; Lords’ Journals, October 28, 1678; 
Cibber’s Apology. me 
+ Burnet, i. 605, 606; Welwood; North’s Life of Guildford, 251. 
t Imay take this opportunity of mentioning that whenever I give only one 
date, I follow the old style, which was, in the seventeenth century, the style of mi 
England; but I reckon the year from the first of January. ‘ 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. BH 


a 
2 


sorted marrriage intolerable, had fled from her husband, had aban- 
doned her vast wealth, and, after having astonished Rome and Pied- 
“mont by her adventures, had fixed her abode in England. Her house 
was the favourite resort of men of wit and pleasure, who, for the sake 
of her smiles and her table, endured her frequent fits of insolence and 
-illhumour. Rochester and Godolphin sometimes forgot the cares of 
state in her company. Barillon and Saint Evremond found in her 
_ drawing room consolation for their long banishment from Paris. The 
Jearning of Vossius, the wit of Waller, were daily employed to flatter 
and amuse her. But her diseased mind required stronger stimu- 
 lants, and sought them in gallantry, in basset, and in usquebaugh.* 
While Charles flirted with his three sultanas, Hortensia’s French 


_ page, a handsome boy, whose vocal performances were the delight of 
_ Whitehall, and were rewarded by numerous presents of rich clothes, 


ae 


etic, and guineas, warbled some amorous verses.+ <A party of 
_ twenty courtiers was seated at cards round a large table on which 
_ gold was heaped in mountains.{ Even then the King had complained 
~ that he did not feel quite well. He had no appetite for his supper: 
lis Test that night was broken; but on the following morning he rose, 
as usual, early. 
cf ‘To that morning the contending factions in his council had, during 
some days, looked forward with anxiety. The struggle between 
Halifax and Rochester seemed to be approaching a decisive crisis. _ 
‘Halifax, not content with having already driven his rival from the 
_ Board of Treasury, had undertaken to prove him guilty of such dis- 
_ honesty or neglect in the conduct of the finances as ought to be 
_ punished by dismission from the public service. It was even whis- 
_ pered that the Lord President would probably be sent to the Tower. 
Riper King had promised to enquire into the matter. The Second of 
r 


d 


February had been fixed for the investigation; and several officers of 
_ the revenue had been ordered to attend with their books on that day.§ 
_ Buta great turn of fortune was at hand. 
_ Scarcely had Charles risen from his ped when his attendants per- 
_ ceived that his utterance was indistinct, and that his thoughts seemed 
. to be wandering. Several men of rank had, as usual, assembled to 
_ see their sovereign shaved and dressed. He made an effort to con- 
_ verse with them in his usual gay style; but his ghastly look surprised 
_ and alarmed them. Soon his face grew black; his eyes turned in his 
_ head; he uttered a cry, staggered, and fell into the arms of one of his 


lords. A physician who had charge of the royal retorts and crucibles 


_ _ *Saint Evremond, passim; Saint Réal, Mémoires de la Duchesse de Mazarin; 
_ Rochester’s Farewell; Evelyn's Diary, Sept. 6, 1676, June 11, 1699. 
_ ¢ Evelyn’s Diary, Jan. 28, 1684-5; Saint Evremond’s Letter to Déry. 

Id., February 4, 1684-5. 

; poet North’s Life of Sir Dudley North, 170; The true Patriot vindicated or 


¥ 


a 
, ‘ . : 
_ & Justification of his Excellency the E—— of R——; Burnet, i, 605, The Treas 
_ ury Books prove that Burnet had good intelligence, 


\ 


78. HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


happened to be present. He had no lancet; but he opened a vein 
with a penknife. The blood flowed freely; but the King was still 
insensible. 

~ He was Jaid on his bed, where, during a short time, the Duchess 
of Portsmouth hung over him with the familiarity of a wife. But 
the alarm had been given. The Queen and the Duchess of York were 
hastening to the room. The favourite concubine was forced to retire 
to her own apartments. Those apartments had been thrice pulled 
down and thrice rebuilt by her lover to gratify her caprice. The 
very furniture of the chimney was massy silver. Several fine paint- 
ings, which properly belonged to the Queen, had been transferred to — 
the dwelling of the mistress. The sideboards were piled with richly — 
wrought plate. In the niches stood cabinets, the masterpieces of 
Japanese art. On the hangings, fresh from the looms of Paris, were 
depicted, in tints which no English tapestry could rival, birds of 
gorgeous plumage, landscapes, hunting matches, the lordly terrace of — 
Saint Germains, the statues and fountains of Versailles.* In the 
midst of this splendour, purchased by guilt and shame, the unhappy 
woman gave herself up to an agony of grief, which, to do her justice, 
was not wholly selfish. 

And now the gates of Whitehall, which ordinarily stood open to 
all comers, were closed. But persons whose faces were known were 
still permitted to enter. The antechamber and galleries were soon 
‘filled to overflowing; and even the sick room was crowded with 
peers, privy councillors, and foreign ministers. AJ] the medical men 
of note in London were summoned. So high did political animosities 
run that the presence of some Whig physicians was regarded as an 
extraordinary circumstance. One Roman Catholic, whose skill was 
then widely renowned, Doctor Thomas Short, was in attendance. 
Several of the prescriptions have been preserved. One of them is 
signed by fourteen Doctors. The patient was bled largely. Hotiron 
was applied to his head. A loathsome volatile salt, extracted 
from human skulls, was forced into his mouth. He recovered his 
senses; but he was evidently in a situation of extreme danger. 

The Queen was for a time assiduous in her attendance. The Duke 
of York scarcely left his brother’s bedside. ‘The Primate and four 
other bishops were then in London. They remained at Whitehall all — 
day, and took it by turns to sit up at night in the King’s room. The 
news of his illness filled the capital with sorrow and dismay. 
For his easy temper and affable manners had won the affection of a 
large part of the nation; and those who most disliked him preferred 
his unprincipled levity to the stern and earnest bigotry of his brother. 

On the morning of Thursday the fifth of February, the London 
Gazette announced that His Majesty was going on well, and was 


* Evelyn’s Diary, Jan. 24, 1681-2, Oct. 4, 1683, 
t Dugdale’s Correspondence, 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 279 
thought by the physicians to be out of danger. The bells of all the 
churches rang merrily; and preparations for bonfires were made in 
the streets. But in the evening it was known that a relapse had 
taken place, and that the medical attendants had given up all hope. ~ 
_ The public mind was greatly disturbed; but there was no disposition 
- totumult. The Duke of York, who had already taken on himself to 
_ give orders, ascertained that the City was perfectly quiet, and that he 
might without difficulty be proclaimed as goon as his brother should 
expire. 
“ The King wasin great pain, and complained that he felt as if a fire 
_ was burning within him. Yet he bore up against his sufferings with 
a fortitude which did not seem to belong to his soft and luxurious 
‘nature. The sight of his misery affected his wife so much that she 
fainted, and was carried senseless to her chamber. The prelates who 
_ were in waiting had from the first exhorted him to prepare for his 
end. They now thought it their duty to address him in a still more 
- urgent manner. William Sancroft, Archbisop of Canterbury, an 
- honest and pious, though narrowminded, man, used great freedom. 
 “Itis time,” he said, ‘‘to speak out; for, Sir, youare about to appear 
 befcre a Judge who is no respecter of persons.” The King answered 
— not a word. 
Thomas Ken, Bishop of Bath and Wells, then tried his powers of 
_ persuasion. He was a man of parts and learning, of quick sensibility 
_ and stainless virtue. His elaborate works have long been forgotten; 
_ but his morning and evening hymns are stiil repeated daily in thou- 
_ sands of dwellings. Though, like most of his order, zealous for 
' Monarchy, he was no sycophant. Before he became a Bishop, he 
_ had maintained the honour of his gown by refusing, when the court 
_ was at Winchester, to let Eleanor Gwynn lodge in the house which 
he had occupied there as aprebendary.* The King had sense enough 
_ to respect so manly a spirit. Of all the prelates he liked Ken the 
best. It was to no purpose, however, that the good Bishop now put 
_ forth all his eloquence. His solemn and pathetic exhortation awed 
_ and melted the bystanders to such a degree that some among them 
believed him to be filled with the same spirit which, in the old time, 
_ had, by the mouths of Nathan and Elias, called sinful princes to 
‘ ‘Tepentance. Charles however was unmoved. He made no objection 
_ Indeed when the service for the visitation of the sick was read. In 
_ Teply to the pressing questions of the divines, he said he was sorry 
_ for what he had done amiss: and he suffered the absolution to be 
_ pronounced over him according to the forms of the Church of Eng- 
_ land: but, when he was urged to say that he died in the communion 
_ of that Church, he seemed not to hear what was said; and nothing 
+ could induce him to take the Eucharist from the hands of the Bishops. 
A table with bread and wine was brought to his bedside, but in vain. 
; * Hawkins’s Life of Ken, 1718, 


280 ‘age HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


Sometimes he said that there was no hurry, and sometimes that he 
was too weak. ' 

Many attributed this apathy to contempt for divine things, and 
many to the stupor which often precedes death. But there were in 
the palace a few persons who knew better. Charles had never been 
a sincere member of the Established Church. His mind had long 
oscillated between Hobbism and Popery. When his health was good 
and his spirits high he was a scoffer. In his few serious moments he 
was a Roman Catholic. The Duke of York was aware of this, but 
was entirely occupied with the care of his own interests. He had 
ordered the outports to be closed. He had posted detachments of 
the Guards in different parts of the city. He had also procured the 
feeble signature of the dying King to an instrument by which some 
duties, granted only till the demise of the Crown, were let to farm 
fora term of three years. These things occupied the attention of 
James to such a degree that, though, on ordinary occasions, he was 


indiscreetly and unseasonably eager to bring over proselytes to his 


Church, he never reflected that his brother was in danger of dying 
without the last sacraments. This neglect was the more extraordi- 
nary because the Duchess of York had, at the request of the Queen, 
suggested, on the morning on which the King—was taken ill, the 
propriety of procuring spiritual assistance. For such assistance 
Charles was at last indebted to an agency very different from that 


of his pious wife and sister-in-law. A life of frivolity and vice had 


not extinguished in the Duchess of Portsmouth all sentiments of 


religion, or all that kindness which is the glory of her sex. The — 


French ambassador Barillon, who had come to the palace to enquire | 


after the King, paid her a visit. He found her in an agony of sorrow. 
She took him into a secret room, and poured out her whole heart to 
him. ‘‘I have,” she said, ‘‘a thing of great moment to tell you. If 
it were known, my head would be in danger. The King is really 
and truly a Catholic; but he will die without being reconciled to the 
Church. His bedchamber is full of Protestant clergymen. I cannot 
enter it without giving scandal. The Duke is thinking only of him- 


self. Speak to him. Remind him that there is a soul at stake. He 
is master now. He can clear the room. Go this instant, or it will — 


be too late.” 

Barillon hastened to the bedchamber, took the Duke aside, and 
delivered the message of the mistress. The conscience of James 
smote him. He started as if roused from sleep, and declared that 
nothing should prevent him from discharging the sacred duty which 
‘had been too long delayed. Several schemes were discussed and 
rejected. At last the Duke commanded the crowd to stand aloof, 
went to the bed, stooped down, and whispered something which none 
of the spectators could hear, but which they supposed to be some 
question about affairs of state. Charles answered in an audible 


voice, ‘‘ Yes, yes, with all my heart.” None of the bystanders, ex-_ 


ae u ; PDP A ; ; 
2 ow Bees HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 281 
cept the French Ambassador, guessed that the King was declaring 
s wish to be admitted into the bosom of the Church of Rome. 
“Shall I bring a priest?” said the Duke. ‘‘Do, brother,” replied 
the sick man. ‘‘ For God’s sake do, and lose no time. But no; you. 
- will get into trouble.” ‘‘If it costs me my life,” said the Duke, “I 
will fetch a priest.” . 
Yo find a priest, however, for such a purpose, at a moment’s notice, 
_ wasnoteasy. For, as the law then stood, the person who admitted 
a proselyte into the Roman Catholic Church was guilty of a capital 
crime. The Count of Castel Melhor, a Portuguese nobleman, who, 
- driven by political troubles from his native land, had been hospitably 
received at the English court, undertook to procure a confessor. He 
had recourse to his countrymen who belonged to the Queen’s house- 
hold; but he found that none of her chaplains knew English or 
_ French enough to shrive the King. The Duke and Barillon were 
_ about to send to the Venetian Minister for a clergyman when they 
_ heard that a Benedictine monk, named John Huddleston, happened 
to be at Whitehall. This man had, with great risk to himself, saved 
the King’s life after the battle of Worcester, and had, on that account, 
' been, ever since the Restoration, a privileged person. In the sharpest 
proclamations which had been put forth against Popish priests, 
when false witnesses had inflamed the nation to fury, Huddleston 
had been excepted by name.* He had readily consented to put his 
life a second time in peril for his prince; but there was still a diffi- 
culty. The honest monk was so illiterate that he did not know what 
he ought to say on an occasion of such importance. He however 
obtained some hints, through the intervention of Castel Melhor, from 
@ Portuguese ecclesiastic, and, thus instructed, was brought up the 
back stairs by Chiffinch, a confidential servant, who, if the satires of 
that age are to be credited, had often introduced visitors of a very 
different description by the same entrance. The Duke then, in the 
King’s name, commanded all who were present to quit the room, 
_ except Lewis Duras, Earl of Feversham, and John Granville, Earl of 
‘Bath. Both these Lords professed the Protestant religion; but James 
conceived that he could count on their fidelity. Feversham, a French- 
man of noble birth, and nephew of the great Turenne, held high rank 
in the English army, and was Chamberlain to the Queen. Bath was 
Groom of the Stoie. 
s The Duke’s orders were obeyed; and even the physicians with- 


} 


x. 


drew. The back door was then opened; and Father Huddleston en- 
tered. A cloak had been thrown over his sacred vestments; and his 
shaven crown was concealed by a flowing wig. ‘‘ Sir,” said the 
Duke, “this good man once saved your life. He now comes to save 


See the London Gazette of Nov. 21, 1678. Barillon and Burnet say that 
Huddleston was excepted out of all the Acts of Parliament made against priests; 
but this is a mistake. 


4 


= 


— Ga S - PA: _ ae 2 
+% 
i” oe 
. . vanes Vy 


sg HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


your soul.” Charles faintly answered, ‘‘He is welcome.” Huddle- 
ston went through his part better than had been expected. He knelt 
by the bed, listened to the confession, pronounced the absolution, and 
administered extreme unction. He asked if the King wished to re- 
ceive the Lord’s supper. ‘‘ Surely,” said Charles, ‘‘if I am not un- 
worthy.” The host was brought in. Charles feebly strove to rise 
and kneel before it. The priest made him lie still, and assured him 
that God would accept the humiliation of the soul, and would not re- 
quire the humiliation of the body. The King found so much difficul- 
ty in swallowing the bread that it was necessary to open the door and 
procure a glass of water. This rite ended, the monk held up a cruci- 
fix before the penitent, charged him to fix his last thoughts on the 
sufferings of the Redeemer, and withdrew. The whole ceremony 
had occupied about three quarters of an hour; and, during that time, 
the courtiers who filled the outer room had communicated their sus- 
picions to each other by whispers and significant glances. The door 
ie at length thrown open, and the crowd again filled the chamber of 
eath. 

It was now late in the evening. The King seemed much relieved 
by what had passed. His natural children were brought to his bed- 
side, the Dukes of Grafton, Southampton, and Northumberland, sons 
of the Duchess of Cleveland, the Duke of Saint Albans, son of Elea- 
nor Gwynn, and the Duke of Richmond, son of the Duchess of 
Portsmouth. Charles blessed them all, but spoke with peculiar ten- 
derness to Richmond. One face which should have been there was 
wanting. The eldest and best loved child was an exile and a wander- 
er. His name was not once mentioned by his father. 

During the night Charles earnestly recommended the Duchess of 
Portsmouth and her boy to the care of James; ‘‘ And do not,” he 
good-naturedly added, ‘‘let poor Nelly starve.” The Queen sent ex- 
cuses for her absence by Halifax. She said that she was too much 
disordered to resume her post by the couch, and implored pardon for 
any offence which she might unwittingly have given. ‘‘She ask my 
pardon, poor woman!” cried Charles; ‘‘ I ask hers with all my heart.” 

The morning light began to peep through the windows of White- 
hall; and Charles desired the attendants to pull aside the curtains, 
that he might have one more look at the day. He remarked that it 
was time to wind up a clock which stood near his bed. These little 
circumstances were long remembered because they proved beyond 
dispute that, when he declared himself a Roman Catholic, he was in 
full possession of his faculties. He apologised to those who had 
stood round him all night for the trouble which he had caused. He 
had been, he said, a most unconscionable time dying; but he hoped 
that they would excuse it. This was the last glimpse of the exquisite — 
urbanity, so often found potent to charm away the resentment of a 
justly incensed nation. Soon after dawn the speech of the dying man 
tailed, Before ten his senses were gone. Great numbers had repaired 


Ms 
tw 


~ ah. 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 288 


to the churches at the hour of morning service. When the prayer for 
_ the King was read, loud groans and sobs showed how deeply his peo- 
ple felt for him. At noon on Friday, the sixth of February, he 
_ passed away without a struggle.* 


__ * Clark’s Life of James the Second, i. 746. Orig. Mem.; Barillon’s Despatch of 
Feb. 1-18, 1685; Van Citters’s Despatches of Feb. 3-13 and Feb. 6-16. Huddle- 
ston’s Narrative; Letters of Philip, second Earl of Chesterfield, 277; Sir H. Ellis’s 
Original Letters, First Series, iii. 333; Second Series, iv. 74; Chaillot MS.; Bur- 
net, i. 606; Evelyn’s Diary, Feb. 4, 1684-5; Welwood’s Memories, 140; North’s 
Life of Guildford, 252; Examen, 648: Hawkins’s Life of Ken; Dryden’s Threnodia 
Augustalis; Sir H. Halford’s Essay on Deaths of Eminent Persons. See also a 

cs ent of a letter written by the Earl of Ailesbury, which is printed in the 

_ European Magazine for April, 1795. Ailesbury calls Burnet animpostor. Yet 

_ his own narrative and Burnet’s will not, to any candid and sensible reader, ap- 

_ pear to contradict each other. I have seen in the British Museum, and also in 

_the Library of the Royal Institution, a curious broadside containing an account 
of the death of Charles. It will be found in the Somers Collections. The author 
was evidently a zealous Roman Catholic, and must have had access to good 

sources of information. I picpely suspect that he had been in communication, 
directly or indirectly, with James himself. No name is given at length; but the 


_ initials are perfectly intelligible, except in one place. It is said that the D. of Y. 
- wasreminded of the duty which he owed to his brother by P. M. A.C. F. Imust 
' Own myself quite unable to decipher the last five letters. It is some consolation 
_ that Sir Walter Scott was equally unsuccessful. (1848.) Since the first edition 
_ Of this work was published, several ingenious conjectures touching these mys- 
_ terious letters have been fotitnunicated tome; but I am convinced that the true 
_ solution has not yet been suggested. (1850.) I still greatly doubt whether the 
_ riddle has been solved. But the most plausible interpretation is one which, 
_ with some variations, occurred, almost at the same time, to myself and 
to several other persons; I am inclined to read ‘‘ Pére Mansuete A Cordelier 
_ Friar.” Mansuete, a Cordelier, was then James’s confessor. To Mansuete 
_ therefore it peculiarly belonged to remind James of a sacred duty which had 
ap culpably neglected. The writer of the broadside must have been unwilling 
‘to inform the world that a soul which many devout Roman Catholics had left 
to perish had been snatched from destruction by the courageous charity of a 
_ woman of loose character. It is therefore not unlikely that he would prefer a 
fiction, at once probable and edifying, to a truth which could not fail to give 
scandal. (1856. 
_ It should seem that no transactions in history ought to be more accurately 
known to us than those which took place round the deathbed of Charles the 
_ Second. We have several relations written by persons who were actually in his 
_ Yoom. We have several relations written by persons who, though not them- 
_ Selves eyewitnesses, had the best opportunity of obtaining information from 
_ eyewitnesses. Yet whoever attempts to digest this vast mass of materials into 
_ aconsistent narrative will find the task a difficult one. Indeed James and his 
wife, when they told the story to the nuns of Chaillot, could not agree as to some 
_ Circumstances. The Queen said that, after Charles had received the last sacra- 
_ ments the Protestant Bishops renewed their exhortations. The King said that 
_ hothing of the kind took place. ‘Surely,’ said the Queen, ‘‘you told me so 
_ yourself.” “It is impossible that I have told you so,” said the King; ‘‘for 
_ nothing of the sort happened.” 
ae. Itis much to be regretted that Sir Henry Halford should have taken s0 little 
it trouble to ascertain the facts on which he pronounced judgment. He does not 
_ Seem to have been aware of the existence of the narrative of James, Barillon, 
and Huddleston. 
fee _As this is the first occasion on which I cito the correspondence of the Dutch 
; _ Ininisters at the English court, I ought here to mention that a series of their 
_ despatches, from the accession of James the Second to his flight, forms one of 
_ the most valuable parts of the Mackintosh collections, The subsequent des- 


aa 


= 


aa 


a 


ay) 
Lf 
- A 


284 = HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


At that time the common people throughout Europe, and nowhere 
more than in England, were in the habit of attributing the death of 
princes, especially when the prince was popular and the death unex- 
pected, to the foulest and darkest kind of assassination. Thus James 
the First had been accused of poisoning Prince Henry. Thus Charles” 
the First had been accused of poisoning James the First. 'Thus when, 
in the time of the Commonwealth, the Princess Elizabeth died at 
Carisbrook, it was loudly asserted that Cromwell had stooped to the 
senseless and dastardly wickedness of mixing noxious drugs with the 
food of a young girl whom he had no conceivable motive to injure.* 
A few years later, the rapid decomposition of Cromwell’s own corpse 
was ascribed by many to a deadly potion administered in his medi- 
cine. The death of Charles the Second could scarcely fail to occasion 
similar rumours. The public ear had been repeatedly abused by 
stories of Popish plots against his life. There was, therefore, in 
many minds, a strong predisposition to suspicion; and there were 
some unlucky circumstances which, to minds so predisposed, might 
seem to indicate that a crime had been perpetrated. The fourteen 
Doctors who deliberated on the King’s case contradicted each other 
and themselves. Some of them thought that his fit was epileptic, and 
that he should be suffered to have his doze out. ‘The majority pro- 
nounced him apoplectic, and tortured him during some hours like an 
Indian at a stake. Then it was determined to call his complaint a 
fever, and to administer doses of bark. One physician, however, pro- 
tested against this course, and assured the tious that his brethren - 
would kill the King among them. Nothing better than dissension 
and vacillation could be expected from such a multitude of advisers. 
But many of the vulgar not unnaturally concluded, from the perplex-— 
ity of the great masters of the healing art, that the malady had some 
extraordinary origin. There is reason to believe that a horrible sus- 
picion did actually cross the mind of Short, who, though skilful in 
his profession, seems to have been a nervous and fanciful man, and 
whose perceptions were probably confused by dread of the odious 
imputations to which he, a Roman Catholic, was peculiarly exposed. 
We cannot, therefore, wonder that wild stories without number were 
repeated and believed by the common people. His Majesty’s tongue 
had swelled to the size of a neat’s tongue. A cake of deleterious 


atches, down to the settlement of the government in February, 1689, I procured 
rom the Hague. The Dutch archives have been far too little explored. They 
abound with information interesting in the highest degree to every Englishman. 
They are admirably arranged; and they are in the charge of gentlemen whose 
courtesy, liberality and zeal for the interests of literature, cannot be to highly 
praised. I wish to acknowledge, in the strongest manner, my own obligations 
to Mr. De Jonge and to Mr. Van Zwanne. 7 
* Clarendon mentions this calumny with just scorn. ‘‘ According to the 
charity of the time towards Cromwell, very many would have it believed to be 
by, alee of which there was no appearance, nor any proof ever after made.” 
— Book Xv. te 


2 | 
obs 
a ; 
7, 7 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 285 


owder had been found in his brain. There were blue spots on his 

reast. There were black spots on his shoulder. Something had 
been put in his snuff-box. Something had been put into his broth. 
Something had been put into his favourite dish of eggs and amber- 
grease. The Duchess of Portsmouth had poisoned him in a cup of 
chocolate. The Queen had poisoned him in a jar of dried pears. ~ 
Such tales ought to be preserved; for they furnish us with a measure 
of the intelligence and virtue of the generation which eagerly de- 
vyoured them. That no rumour of the same kind has ever, in the 
present age, found credit among us, even when lives on which great 
interest depended have been terminated by unforeseen attacks of dis- 
ease, isto be attributed partly to the progress of medical and chemical 
science, but partly also, it may be hoped, to the progress which the 
nation has made in good sense, justice, and humanity.* 

When all was over, James retired from the bedside to his closet, 
where, during a quarter of an hour, he remained alone. Meanwhile 
the Privy Councillors who were in the palace assembled. The new 
King came forth, and took his place at the head of the board. 
He commenced his administration, according to usage, by a speech 
to the Council. He expressed his regret for the loss which he had 
just sustained, and he promised to imitate the singular lenity which 
had distinguished the late reign. He was aware, he said, that he had 
been accused of a fondness for arbitrary power. But that was not 
the only falsehood which had been told of him. He was resolved to 
maintain the established government both in Churchand State. The 
Church of England he knew to be eminently loyal. It should there- 

‘fore always be his care to support and defend her. The laws of Eng- 
land, he also knew, were suflicient to make him as great a King as he 
could wish to be. He would not relinquish his own rights; but he 
would respect the rights of others. He had formerly risked his life 
in defence of his country; and he would still go as far as any man in 
support of her just liberties. 

This speech was not, like modern speeches on similar occasions, 
carefully prepared by the advisers of the sovereign. It was the ex- 
temporaneous expression of the new King’s feelings at a moment of 
great excitement. The members of the Council broke forth into 
Clamours of delight and gratitude. The Lord President, Rochester, 
im the name of his brethren, expressed a hope that His Majesty’s 

_ most welcome declaration would be made public. The Solicitor 


* Welwood, 139; Burnet, i. 609; Sheffield’s Character of Charles the Second; 
North’s Life of Guildford, 252; Examen, 648; Revolution Politics; Higgons on 
Burnet. What North says of the embarrassment and vacillations of the physi- 
Cians is confirmed by the despatches of Van Citters. i have been much per- 

_ plexed by the strange story about Short’s suspicions. I was, at one time, in- 
clined to adopt North’s solution. But, though I attach little weight to the au- 

: ook of Welwood and Burnet in such a case, I cannot reject the testimony of 
80 well informed and so unwilling a witness as Sheffield. 


M. E. i.—w 


? 
a 
os 


~ 


286 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


General, Heneage Finch, offered to act as clerk. He was a zealous 
churchman, and, as such, was naturally desirous that there should 
be some permanent record of the gracious promises which had just 
been uttered. ‘‘ Those promises,” he said, ‘‘ have made so deep an 
impression on me that I can repeat them word for word.” He soon 
produced his report. James read it, approved of it, and ordered it 
to be published. At a later. period he said that he had taken this 
step without due consideration, that his unpremeditated expressions 
touching the Church of England were too strong, and that Finch 
had, with a dexterity which at the time escaped notice, made them 
still stronger.* 

The King had been exhausted by long watching and by many vio- 
fent emotions. He now retired to rest. The Privy Councillors, 
having respectfully accompanied him to his bedchamber, returned 
to their seats, and issued orders for the ceremony of proclamation. 
The Guards were under arms; the heralds appeared in their gor- 
geous coats; and the pageant proceeded without any obstruction. 
Casks of wine were broken up in the streets, and all who passed were 
invited to drink to the health of the new sovereign. But, though an 
occasional shout was raised, the people were not in a joyous mood. 
Tears were seen in many eyes; and it was remarked that there was 
scarcely a housemaid in London who had not contrived to procure 
some fragment of black crape in honour of King Charles.+ 

The funeral called forth much censure. It would, indeed, hardly 
have been accounted worthy of a noble and opulent subject. The 
Tories gently blamed the new King’s parsimony: the Whigs sneered 
at his want of natural affection; and the fiery Covenanters of Scot- 
land exultingly proclaimed that the curse denounced of old against 
wicked princes had been signally fulfilled, and that the departed 
tyrant had been buried with the burial of an ass.{ Yet James com- 
menced his administration with a large measure of public good will. 
His speech to the Council appeared in print, and the impression 
which it produced was highly favourable to him. This, then, was - 
the prince whom a faction had driven into exile and had tried to rob 
of his birthright, on the ground that he was a deadly enemy to the 
religion and laws of England. He had triumphed: he was on the 
throne; and his first act was to declare that he would defend the 
Church, and would strictly respect the rights of his people. The 
estimate which all parties had formed of his character, added weight 
to every word that fellfrom him. The Whigs called him haughty, ~ 
implacable, obstinate, regardless of public opinion. The Tories, 


* London Gazette, Feb. 9, 1684-5; Clarke’s Life of James the Second, ii. 3; 
Barillon, Feb. 9-19; Evelyn’s Diary, Feb. 6. 


t See the authorities cited in the last note. See also the Examen, 647; Burnet, ‘a 


i. 620; Higgons on Burnet. 
London Gazette, Feb. 14, 1684-5; Evelyn’s Diary of the same day; Burnet, 
i, 610; The Hind let loose. 


~ 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 287 


while they extolled his princely virtues, had often lamented his 
neglect of the arts which conciliate popularity. Satire itself had 
never represented him as a man likely to court public favour by 
professing what he did not feel, and by promising what he had no 
intention of performing. On the Sunday which followed his acces- 
sion, his speech was quoted in many pulpits. ‘‘ We have now for 
our Church, cried one loyal preacher, ‘‘ the word of a King, and of 
a King who was never worse than his word.” This pointed sentence 
was fast circulated through town and country, and was soon the 
watchword of the whole Tory party.* 

The great offices of state had become vacant by the demise of the 
crown; and it was necessary for James to determine how they should 
be filled. Few of the members of the late cabinet had any reason to 
expect his favour. Sunderland, who was Secretary of State, and 
Godolphin, who was First Lord of the Treasury, had supported the 
Exclusion Bill. Halifax, who held the Privy Seal, had opposed that 
bill with unrivalled powers of argument and eloquence. But Hali- 
fax was the mortal enemy of despotism and of Popery. He saw 
with dread the progress of the French arms on the Continent, and 
the influence of French gold in the counsels of England. Had his 
advice been followed, the laws would have been strictly observed: 
clemency would have been extended to the vanquished Whigs: the 
Parliament would have been convoked in due season: an attempt 
would have been made to reconcile our domestic factions; and the 
principles of the Triple Alliance would again have guided our foreign 
policy. He had therefore incurred the bitter animosity of James. 
The Lord Keeper Guildford could hardly be said to belong to either 
of the parties into which the court was divided. He could by no 
means be called a friend of liberty; and yet he had so great a rever- 
ence for the letter of the law that he was not a serviceable tool of 
arbitrary power. He was accordingly designated by the vehement 
Tories as a Trimmer, and was to James an object of aversion with 
which contempt was largely mingled. Ormond, who was Lord 
Steward of the Household and Viceroy of Ireland, then resided at 
Dublin. His claims on the royal gratitude were superior to those of 
any other subject. He had fought bravely for Charles the First: he 

had shared the exile of Charles the Second; and, since the Restora- 

tion, he had, in spite of many provocations, kept his loyalty un- 
stained. Though he had been disgraced during the predominance 
of the Cabal, he had never gone into factious opposition, and had, in 
the days of the Popish Plot and the Exclusion Bill, been foremost 
among the supporters of the throne. He was now old, and had been 
recently tried by the most cruel of all calamities. He had followed 
to the grave a son who should have been his own chief mourner, the 
gallant Ossory. The eminent services, the venerable age, and the 


* Burnet, i, 628; Lestrange, Observator, Feb. 11, 1684. 


tats 


_ hy 


~ 


288 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


domestic misfortunes of Ormond made him an object of general in- 
terest to the nation. The Cavaliers regarded him as, both by right 


of seniority and by right of merit, their head; and the Whigs knew | 


that, faithful as he had always been to the cause of monarchy, he 
was no friend either to Popery or to arbitrary power. But, high as 
he s ood in the public estimation, he had little favour to expect from 
his new master. James, indeed, while still a subject, had urged his 
brother to make a complete change in the Irish administration. 


Charles had assented; and it had been arranged that, in a few months, 


there should be a new Lord Iieutenant.* 


Rochester was the only member of the cabinet who stood high in ’ 


the favour of the King. The general expectation was that he would 
be immediately placed at the head of affairs, and that all the other 
great officers of the state would be changed. This expectation proved 
to be well founded in part only. Rochester was declared Lord Treas- 
urer, and thus became prime minister. Neither a Lord High Admiral 
nor a Board of Admiralty was appointed. The new King, who loved 
the details of naval business, and would have made a respectable clerk 
in a dockyard at Chatham, determined to be his own minister of 
marine. Under him the management of that important department 
was confided to Samuel Pepys, whose library and diary have kept his 
name fresh to our time. No servant of the late sovereign was pub- 
licly disgraced. Sunderland exerted so much art and address, em- 
ployed so many intercessors, and was in possession of so many secrets, 
that he was suffered to retain his seals. Godolphin’s obsequiousness, 


industry, experience and taciturnity, could ill be spared. As he was. 


no longer wanted at the Treasury, he was made Chamberlain to the 


Queen. With these three Lords the King took counsel on all im- 
portant questions. As to Halifax, Ormond, and Guildford, he deter- 
mined not yet to dismiss them, but merely to humble and annoy them. 

Halifax was told that he must give up the Privy Seal and. accept the 
Presidency of the Council. He submitted with extreme reluctance. 
For, though the President of the Council had always taken precedence 
of the Lord Privy Seal, the Lord Privy Seal was, in that age, a much 
more important officer than the Lord President. Rochester had not 
forgotten the jest which had been made a few months before on his 
own removal from the Treasury, and enjoyed in his turn the pleasure 
of kicking his rival up stairs. The Privy Seal was delivered to 
Rochester’s elder brother, Henry Earl of Clarendon. 

To Barillon James expressed the strongest dislike of Halifax. ‘I 
know him well, I never can trust him. He shall have no share in the 
management of public business. As to the place which I have given 
him, it will just serve to show how little influence he has.” But to 
Halifax it was thought convenient to hold a very different language. 


4 


* The letters which passed between Rochester and Ormond on this subjeot 
Will be found in the Clarendon Correspondence. 


Pa A al 
*. rd : 
See. : i 

le | 


YWISTORY OF ENGLAND. 289 


_ * All the past is forgotten,” said the King, ‘‘ except the service which 
you did me in the debate on the Exclusion Bill.” This speech has 
often been cited to prove that James was not so vindictive as he had 
been called by his enemies. It seems rather to prove that he by no 
means deserved the praises which had been bestowed on his sincerity 
by his friends.* 

Ormond was politely informed that his services were no longer 
needed in Ireland, and was invited to repair to Whitehall, and to per- 
form the functions of Lord Steward. He dutifully submitted, but 
did not affect to deny that the new arrangement wounded his feelings 
deeply. On the eve of his departure he gave a magnificent banquet 
at Kilmainham Hospital, then just completed, to the officers of the 
garrison of Dublin. After dinner he rose, filled a goblet to the brim 
with wine, and, holding it up, asked whether he had spilt one drop. 
“No, gentlemen; whatever the courtiers may say, | am not yet sunk 
into dotage. My hand does not fail me yet: and my hand is not 
steadier than my heart. To the health of King James!” Such was 
the last fareweil of Ormond to Ireland. He left the administration 
in the hands of Lords Justices, and repaired to London, where he was 
received with unusual marks of public respect. Many persons of 
rank went forth to meet him on the road. A long train of equipages 
followed him into Saint James’s Square, where his mansion stood; and 
the Square was thronged by a multitude which greeted him with loud 
acclamations. 

The Great Seal was left in Guildford’s custody; but a marked in- 
dignity was at the same time offered to him. It was determined that 
another lawyer of more vigour and audacity should be called to assist 
in the administration. The person selected was Sir George Jeffreys, 
Chief Justice of the Court of King’s Bench. The depravity of this 
man has passed into a proverb. Both the great English parties have 
attacked his memory with emulous violence: for the Whigs consid- 
ered him as their most barbarous enemy; and the Tories found it 
convenient to throw on him the blame of all the crimes which had 
sullied their triumph. A diligent and candid enquiry will show that 
some frightful stories which have been told concerning him are false 
or exaggerated. Yet the dispassionate historian will be able to make 
very little deduction from the vast mass of infamy with which the 
memory of the wicked judge has been loaded. 

He was a man of quick and vigorous parts, but constitutionally 
prone to insolence and to the angry passions. When just emerging 
from boyhood he had risen into practice at the Old Bailey bar, a bar 


* The ministerial changes are announced in the London Gazette, Feb. 19, 
1684-5. See Burnet, i. 621; Barillon, Feb. 9-19. 16-26. and soe. 


+ Carte’s Life of Ormond; Secret Consults of the Romish Party in Ireland, 
1690; Memoirs of Ireland, 1716. 


7 \ 


290 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


where advocates have always used a license of tongue unknown in 
Westminster Hall. Here, during many years his chief business was 
to examine and crossexamine the most hardened miscreants of a great 
capital. Daily conflicts with prostitutes and thieves called out and 
exercised his powers so effectually that he became the most consum-. 
mate bully ever known in his profession. ‘Tenderness for others and 
respect for himself were feelings alike unkrown to him. He acquired 
a boundless command of the rhetoric in which the vulgar express 
hatred and contempt. The profusion of maledictions and vitupera- 
tive epithets which composed his vocabulary could hardly have been 
rivalled in the fishmarket or the beargarden. His countenance and — 
his voice must always have been unamiable. But these natural ad- 
vantages, —for such he seems to have thought them,—he had improved 
to such a degree that there were few who, in his paroxysms of rage, 
could see or hear him without emotion. Impudence and ferocity 
sate upon his brow. The glare of his eyes had a fascination for the 
unhappy victim on whom they were fixed. Yet his brow and his 
eye were less terrible than the savage lines of his mouth. His yell of 
fury, as was said by one who had often heard it, sounded like the 
thunder of the judgment day. These qualifications he carried, while — 
still a youug man, from the bar to the bench. He early became Com- 
mon Serjeant, and then Recorder of London. As a judge at the City 
sessions he exhibited the same propensities which afterwards, in a 
higher post, gained for him an unenviable immortality. Already 
might be remarked in him the most odious vice wiich is incident to 
human nature, a delight in misery merely as misery. There was a 
fiendish exultation in the way in which he pronounced sentence on 
offenders. Their weeping and imploring seemed to titillate him 
voluptuously; and he loved to scare them into fits by dilating with 
luxuriant amplification on all the details of what they were to suffer. 
Thus, when he had an opportunity of ordering an unlucky adventur- 
ess to be whipped at the cart’s tail, ‘‘ Hangman,” he would exclaim, 
‘‘T charge you to pay particular attention to this lady! Scourge her 
sound!y, man! Scourge her till the blood runs down! It is Christ- 
mas, a cold time for Madam to strip in! See that you warm her 
shoulders thoroughly!”* He was hardly less facetious when he passed 
judgment on poor Lodowick Muggleton, the drunken tailor who 
fancied himself a prophet. ‘‘Impudent rogue!” roared Jeffreys, 
‘thou shalt have an easy, easy, easy punishment!” One part of this 
easy punishment was the pillory, in which the wretched fanatic was 
almost killed with brickbats.+’ 

By this time the heart of Jeffreys had been hardened to that temper 


* Christmas Sessions Paper of 1678. 

+ The Acts of the Witnesses of the Spirit, part v. chapter v. In this work Lod- 
owick, after his fashion, revenges himself on the ‘‘ bawling devil,” as he calls 
Jeffreys, by a string of curses whieh Ernulphus, or Jeffreys himself, might have 
envied. The trial was in January, 1677. 


ows 


~ 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 291 


which tyrants require in their worst implements. He had hitherto 
looked for professional advancement to the corporation of Lon- 
don. He had therefore professed himself a Roundhead, and had 
always appeared to be in a higher state of exhilaration when he ex. 
plained to Popish priests that they were to be cut down alive, and 
were to see their own bowels burned, than when he passed ordinary 
sentences of death. But, as soon as he had got all that the city could 
give, he made haste to sell his forehead of brass and his tongue of 


venom to the Court. Chiffinch, who was accustomed to act as broker 


in infamous contracts of more than one kind, lent his aid. He had 
conducted many amorous and many political intrigues; but assuredly 
never rendered a more scandalous service to his masters than when 
he introduced Jeffreys to Whitehall. The renegade soon found a 
patron in the obdurate and revengeful James, but was always re- 
garded with scorn and disgust by Charles, whose faults, great as they 
were, had no affinity with insolence and cruelty. ‘‘That man,” said 
the King, ‘‘has no learning, no sense, no manners, and more impu- 
dence than ten carted street-walkers.” * Work was to be done, how- 
ever, which could be trusted to no man who reverenced law or was 
sensible of shame; and thus Jeffreys, at an age at which a barrister 
thinks himself fortunate if he is employed to conduct an important 
cause, was made Chief Justice of the King’s Bench. 

His enemies could not deny that he possessed some of the qualities 
of a great judge. His legal knowledge, indeed, was merely such as 


-he had picked up in practice of no very high kind. But he had one 


of those happily constituted intellects which, across Jabyrinths of 


‘sophistry, and through masses of immaterial facts, go straight to the 


true point. Of his intellect, however, he seldom had the full use: 
Even in civil causes his malevolent and despotic temper perpetually 
disordered his judgment. To enter his court was to enter the den of 
a wild beast, which none could tame, and which was as likely to be 
roused to rage by caresses as by attacks. He frequently poured forth 
on plaintiffs and defendants, barristers and attorneys, witnesses and 
jurymen, torrents of frantic abuse, intermixed with oaths and curses. 

is looks and tones had inspired terror when he was merely a young 


advocate struggling into practice. Now that he was at the head of 


the most formidable tribunal in the realm, there were few indeed 
who did not tremble before him. Even when he was sober, his vio- 
lence was sufficiently frightful. But in general his reason was over- 
clouded and his evil passions stimulated by the fumes of intoxication. 
His evenings were ordinarily given to revelry. People who saw him 
only over his bottle would have supposed him to be aman gross 
indeed, sottish, and addicted to low company and low merriment, 


but social and goodhumoured. He was constantly surrounded on 


* This saying is to be found in many contemporary amphlets. Titus Oates 
was never tired of quoting it. See his R7uq@v Gxcrlacn, 


por 
Sa 
e 


292 ~ HISTORY OF ENGLAND. “ 


such occasions by buffoons selected, for the most part, from among 

the vilest pettifoggers who practised before him. These men ban- 

tered and abused each other for his entertainment. He joined in 

their ribald talk, sang catches with them, and, when his head grew 

hot, hugged and kissed them in an ecstasy of drunken fondness. 

But though wine at first seemed to soften his heart, the effect a few 

hours later was very different. He often came to the judgment seat, 

having kept the court waiting long, and yet having but half slept off 

his debauch, his cheeks on fire, his eyes staring like those of a 

maniac. When he was in this state, his boon companions of the 

preceding night, if they were wise, kept out of his way: for the 

recollection of the familiarity to which he had admitted them in- 

flamed his malignity; and he was sure to take every opportunity of 
overwhelming them with execration and invective. Not the least 

odious of his many odious peculiarities was the pleasure which he, 
took in publicly browbeating and mortifying those whom, in his 
fits of maudlin tenderness, he had encouraged to presume on his 
favour. . 

The services which the government had expected from him were 
performed, not merely without flinching, but eagerly and triumph- 
antly. His first exploit was the judicial murder of Algernon Sidney. 
What followed was in perfect harmony with this beginning. Re- 
spectable Tories lamented the disgrace which the barbarity and in- 
decency of so great a functionary brought upon the administration 
of justice. But the excesses which filled such men with horror were 
titles to the este m of James. Jeffreys, therefore, very soon after 
the death of Charles, obtained a seat in the cabinet and a peerage. 
This last honour was a signal mark of royal approbation. For, since 
the judicial system of the realm had been remodelled in the thir- 
teenth century, no Chief Justice had been a Lord of Parliament.* 

Guildford now found himself superseded in all his political fune- 
tions, and restricted to his business as a judge in equity. At Council 
he was treated by Jeffreys with marked incivility. The whole legal 
patronage was in the hands of the Chief Justice; and it was well 
known by the bar that the surest way to propitiate the Chief Justice 
was to treat the Lord Keeper with disrespect. 

James had not been many hours King when a dispute arose be- 
tween the two heads of the law. The customs had been settled on 
Charles for life only, and could not therefore be legally exacted by 
the new sovereign. Some weeks must elapse before a House of 


* The chief sources of information concerning Jeffreys are the State Triais 
and North’s Life of Lord Guildford. Some touches of minor importance I owe 
to contemporary pamphlets in verse and prose. Such are the Bloody Assizes, 
the Life and Death of George Lord Jeffreys, the Panegyric on the late Lord Jef- — 
freys, the Letter to the Lord Chancellor, Jeffrey’s Elegy, See also Evelyn’s 
Diary, Dec. 5, 1683, Oct. 31, 1685. Iscarcely need advise every reader to consult 
Lord Campbell’s excellent Life of Jeffreys. 


a 


/ 


“HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 298 


Commons could be chosen. If, in the meantime, the duties were 
suspended, the revenue would suffer; the regular course of trade 
would be interrupted; the consumer would derive no benefit; and 
the only gainers would be those fortunate speculators whose cargoes 
might happen to arrive during the interval between the demise of the 
crown and the meeting of the Parliament. The Treasury was be- 
sieged by merchants whose warehouses were filled with goods on 
which duty had been paid, and who were in grievous apprehension 
of being undersold and ruined. Impartial men must admit that this 
was one of those cases in which a government may be justified in 
deviating from the strictly constitutional course. But when it is nec- 
essary to deviate from the strictly consiitutional course, the deviation 
clearly ought to be no greater than the necessity requires. Guildord 
felt this, and gave advice which did him honour. He proposed that 
*the duties should be levied, but should be kept in the Exchequer apart 
from other sums till the Parliament should meet. In this way the 
King, while violating the letter of the laws, would show that he 
wished to conform to their spirit. Jeffreys gave very different coun- 
sel. He advised James to put forth an edict declaring it to be His 
Majesty’s will and pleasure that the customs should continue to be 
paid. This advice was well suited to the King’s temper. The 
judicious proposition of the Lord Keeper was rejected as worthy 


_ only of a Whig, or of what was still worse, a Trimmer. A procla- 


mation, such as the Chief Justice had suggested, appeared. Some 

people had expected that a violent outbreak of public indignation 

would be the consequence; but they were deceived. ‘The spirit of 

Opposition had not yet revived; and the court might safely venture 

to take steps which, five years before, would have produced a rebel- 

lion. In the City of London, lately so turbulent, scarcely a murmur 
was heard. * 

The proclamation, which announced that the customs would still 
be levied, announced also that a Parliament would shortly meet. It 
Was not without many misgivings that James had determined to call 
the Estates of his realm together. The moment was, indeed, most 
auspicious for a general election. Never since the accession of the 
House of Stuart had the constituent bodies been so favorably disposed 
towards the Court. But the new sovereign’s mind was haunted 
by an apprehension not to be mentioned even at this distance of time, 
without shame and indignation. He was afraid that by summoning 
his Parliament he might incur the displeasure of the King of France. 

To the King of France it mattered little which of the two English 
factions triumphed at the elections: for all the Parliaments which 
had met since the Restoration, whatever might have been their temper 
as to domestic politics, had been jealous of the growing power of the 
House of Bourbon. On this subject there was little difference be- 


———— 


* London Gazette, Feb. 12, 1684-5. North’s Life of Guildford, 254, 


294 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. a 


tween the Whigs and the sturdy country gentlemen who formed the 
main strength of the Tory party. Lewis had therefore spared neither 
bribes nor menaces to prevent Charles from convoking the Houses; 
and James, who had from the first been in the secret of his brother’s 
foreign politics, had, in becoming King of England, become also a 
hireling and vassal of France. 

Rochester, Godolphin, and Sunderland, who now formed the inte- 
rior cabinet, were perfectly aware that their late master had been in 
the habit of receiving money from the court of Versailles. They were 
consulted by James as to the expediency of convoking the legislature, 
They acknowledged the importance of keeping Lewis in good hu- — 
mour: but it seemed to them that the calling of a Parliament was not 
a matter of choice. Patient as the nation appeared to be, there were 
limits to its patience. The principle, that the money of the subject 
could not be lawfully taken by the King without the assent of the 
Commons, was firmly rooted in the public mind; and though, on an 
extraordinary emergency even Whigs might be willing to pay, during 
a few weeks, duties not imposed by statute, it was certain that even 
Tories would become refractory if such irregular taxation should con- 
tinue longer than the special circumstances which alone justified it. 
The Houses then must meet; and since it was so, the sooner they 
were summoned the better. Even the short delay which would be 
occasioned by a reference to Versailles might produce irreparable 
mischief. Discontent and suspicion would spread fast through socie- 
ty. Halifax would complain that the fundamental principles of the 
constitution were violated. The Lord Keeper, like a cowardly pe- 
dantic special pleader as he was, would take the same side. What 
might have been done with a good grace would at last be done with 
a bad grace. Those very ministers whom His Majesty most wished 
to lower in the public estimation would gain popularity at his expense. 
The ill temper of the nation might seriously affect the result of the 
elections. ‘These arguments were unanswerable. The King there- 
fore notified to the country his intention of holding a Parliament. 
But he was painfully anxious to exculpate himself from the guilt of 
having acted undutifully and disrespectfully towards France. He 
led Barillon into a private room, and there apologised for having 
dared to take so important a step without the previous sanction of 
Lewis. ‘‘Assure your master,” said James, ‘‘of my gratitude and 
attachment. J know that without his protection I can do nothing. 
I know what troubles my brother brought on himself by not adhering 
steadily to France. I will take good care not to let the Houses med- 
dle with foreign affairs. If I see in them any disposition to make. 
mischief, I will send them about their business. Explain this to my 
good brother. I hope that he will not take it amiss that I have acted 
without consulting him. He has aright to be consulted; and it ismy 
wish to consult him about everything. But in this case the delay 
even of a week might have produced serious consequences.” 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 295 


These ignominious excuses were, on the following morning, re- 
peated by Rochester. Barillon received them civilly. Rochester, 

own bolder, proceeded to ask for money. ‘‘It will be weil laid 
out,” he said: ‘‘ your master cannot employ his revenues better. Rep- 
resent to him strongly how important it is that the King of England 
should be dependent, not on his own people, but on the friendship 
of France alone.”* 

Barillon hastened to communicate to Lewis the wishes of the Eng- 
lish government; but Lewis had already anticipated them. His first 
act, after he was apprised of the death of Charles, was to collect bills 
of exchange on England to the amount of five hundred: thousand 
livres, a sum equivalent to about thirty-seven thousand five hundred 

ounds sterling. Such bills were not then to be easily procured in 
Paris at a day’s notice. In afew hours, however, the purchase was 
- effected, and a courier started for London.t As soon as Barillon 
received the remittance, he flew to Whitehall, and communicated the 
welcome news. James was not ashamed to shed, or pretend to shed, 
tears of delight and gratitude. ‘‘ Nobody but your King,” he said, 
“does such kind, such noble things. I never can be grateful enough. 
Assure him that my attachment will last to the end of my days.” 
Rochester, Sunderland, and Godolphin came, one after another, to 
‘embrace the ambassador, and to whisper to him that he had given 
new life to their royal master. t 

But though James and his three advisers were pleased with the 
promptitude which Lewis had shown, they were by no means satisfied 
with the amount of the donation. As they were afraid, however, 
that they might give offence by importunate mendicancy, they mere- 
ly hinted their wishes. They declared that they had no intention of 
haggling with so generous a benefactor as the French King, and that 
they were willing to trust entirely to his munificence. They, at the 
same time, attempted to propitiate him by a large sacrifice of national 
honour. It was well known that one chief end of his politics was to 

_add the Belgian provinces to his dominions. England was bound by 
a treaty which had been concluded with Spain when Danby was Lord 
Treasurer, to resist any attempt which France might make on those 
provinces. The three ministers informed Barillon that their master 
considered that treaty as no longer obligatory. It had been made, 
they said, by Charles: it might, perhaps, have been binding on him; 
but his brother did not think himself bound by it. The most Chris- 
tian King might, therefore, without any fear of opposition from Eng- 
land, proceed to annex Brabant and Hainault to his empire.§ 


* The chief authority for these transactions is Barillon’s despatch of Februa- 
ry 9-19, 1685. It will be found in the Appendix to Mr. Fox’s History. See also 
Preston’s Letter to James, dated April 18--28, 1685, in Dalrymple. 

+ Lewis to Barillon, Feb. 16-26, 1685. 

t Barillon, Feb. 16-26, 1685. 

-  § Barillon, Feb. 18-28, 1685. 


AY 


Kas 


/ 


. 296 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


It was at the same time resolved that an extraordinary embassy 
should be sent to assure Lewis of the gratitude and affection of 
James. For this mission was selected a man who did not as yet oc- 
cupy a very eminent position, but whose renown, strangely made 
up of infamy and glory, filled at a later period the whole civilized 
world. 

Soon after the Restoration, in the gay and dissolute times which 
have been celebrated by the lively pen of Hamilton, James, young 
and ardent in the pursuit of pleasure, had been attracted to Arabella 
Churchill, one of the maids of honour who waited on his first wife. 
The young lady was plain: but the taste of James was not nice: and 
she became his avowed mistress. She was the daughter of a poor 
Cavalier knight who haunted Whitehall, and made himself ridicu- 
lous by publishing a dull and affected folio, long forgotten, in praise 
of monarchy and monarchs. The necessities of the Churchills were 
pressing: their loyalty was ardent; and their only feeling about. 
Arabella’s seduction seems to have been joyful surprise that so 
homely a girl should have attained such preferment. 

Her interest was indeed of great use to her relations: but none of 
them was so fortunate as her eldest brother John, a fine youth, who 
carried a pair of colours in the foot guards. He rose fast in the 
court and in the army, and was early distinguished as a man of 
fashion and of pleasure. His stature was commanding, his face 
handsome, his address singularly winning, yet of such dignity that 
the most impertinent fops never ventured to take any liberty with 
him; his temper, even in the most vexatious and irritating circum- _ 
stances, always under perfect command. His education had been so 
much neglected that he could not spell the most common words of 
his own language: but his acute and vigorous understanding amply 
supplied the place of book learning. He was not talkative: but 
when he was forced to speak in public, his natural eloquence moved 
the envy of practised rhetoricians.* His courage was singularly 
cool and imperturbable. During many years of anxiety and peril, he 
never, in any emergency, lost even for a moment, the perfect use of 
his admirable judgment. 

In his twenty-third year he was sent with his regiment to join the 
French forces, then engaged in operations against Holland. His se 
rene intrepidity distinguished him among thousands of brave soldiers. 
His professional skill commanded the respect of veteran officers. He 
was publicly thanked at the head of the army, and received many 
marks of esteem and confidence from Turenne, who was then at the 
height of military glory. 

Unhappily the splendid qualities of John Churchill were mingled 


. "yy 


* Swift who hated Marlborough, and who was little disposed to allow any 
merit to those whom he hated, says, in the famous letter to Crassus, ‘‘ You are 
no ill orator in the Senate.”’ } 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 297 |. 


with alloy of the most sordid kind. Some propensities, which in 
outh are singularly ungraceful, began very early to show themselves 
inhim. He was thrifty in his very vices, and levied ample contri- 
butions on ladies enriched by the spoils of more liberal lovers. He 
was, during a short time, the object of the violent but fickle fond- 
ness of the Duchess of Cleveland. On one occasion he was caught 
with her by the King, and was forced to leap out of the window. 
She rewarded this hazardous feat of gallantry with a present of five 
thousand pounds. With this sum the prudent young hero instantly 
bought an annuity of five hundred a year, well secured on landed 
property.* Already his private drawer contained a hoard of broad 
pieces which, fifty years later, when he was a Duke, a Prince of 
the Empire, and the richest subject in Europe, remained untouched.+ 
After the close of the war he was attached to the household of the 
Duke of York, accompanied his patron to the Low Countries and 
to Edinburgh, and was rewarded for his services with a Scotch 
' peerage and with the command of the only regiment of dragoons 
which was then on the English establishment.t His wife had a post 
in the family of James’s younger daughter, the Princess of Denmark. 
Lord Churchill was now sent as ambassador extraordinary to Ver- 
sailles. He had it in charge to express the warm gratitude of the 
English government for the money which had been so generously 
bestowed. It had been originally intended that he should at the 
same time ask Lewis for a much larger sum; but, on full considera- 
tion, it was apprehended that such indelicate greediness might 
disgust the benefactor whose spontaneous liberality had been so 
signally displayed. Churchill was therefore directed to confine 
Thea to thanks for what was past, and to say nothing about the 
uture. 
But James and his ministers, even while protesting that they did 
not mean to be importunate, contrived to hint, very intelligibly, 


* Dartmouth’s note on Burnet, i. 264. Chesterfield’s Letters, Nov. 18, 1748. 
Chesterfield is an unexceptional witness; for the annuity was a charge on the 
estate of his grandfather, Halifax. I believe that there is no foundation for a 
disgraceful addition to the story which may be found in Pope: 


“The gallant too, to whom she paid it down, 
Lived to refuse his mistress half a crown.”’ 


Curll calls this a piece of travelling scandal. 
Pope in Spence’s Anecdotes. 
+ See the Historical Records of the first or Royal Dragoons. The appoint- 
Ment of Churchill to the command of this regiment was ridiculed as an instance 
of absurd partiality. One lampoon of that time, which I do not remember to 
have seen in print, but of which a manuscript copy is in the British Museum, 
contains these lines: 
‘“*Let’s cut our meat with spoons: 
The sense is as good 
As that Churchill should 
Be put to command the dragoons,” 


§ Barillon, Feb. 16-26, 1865. 


298 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


what they wished and expected. In the French ambassador they 
had a dexterous, a zealous, and, perhaps, not a disinterested inter- 
cessor. Lewis made some difficulties, probably with the design of 
enhancing the value of his gifts. In a very few weeks, however, 
Barillon received from Versailles fifteen hundred thousand livres 
more. This sum, equivalent to about a hundred and twelve thou- 
sand pounds sterling, he was instructed to dole out cautiously. He 
was authorised to furnish the English government with thirty thou- 
sand pounds, for the purpose of corrupting members of the New 
House of Commons. The rest he was directed to keep in reserve for 
some extraordinary emergency, such as a dissolution or an insur- 
rection.* ' 

The turpitude of these transactions is universally acknowledged: 
but their rea] nature seems to be often misunderstood: for though 
the foreign policy of the last two Kings of the House of Stuart has 
never, since the correspondence of Barillon was exposed to the pub- 
lic eye, found an apologist among us, there is still a party which 
labours to excuse their domestic policy. Yet it is certain that be- 
tween their domestic policy and their foreign policy there was a 


necessary and indissoluble connection. If they had upheld, during © 
a single year, the honour of the country abroad, they would have 


been compelled to change the whole system of their administration 
at home. ‘To praise them for refusing to govern in conformity with 
the sense of Parliament, and yet to blame them for submitting to the 
dictation of Lewis, is inconsistent. For they had only one choice, to 
be dependent on Lewis, or to be dependent on Parliament. 

James, to do him justice, would gladly have found out a third 
way: but there was none. He became the slave of France: but it 


would be incorrect to represent him asa contented slave. He had ~ 


spirit enough to be at times angry with himself for submitting to such 
thraldom, and impatient to break loose from it; and this disposition 
was studiously encouraged by the agents of many foreign powers. 

His accession had excited hopes and fears in every continental 
* court: and the commencement of his administration was watched by 
strangers with interest scarcely less deep than that which was felt 
by his own subjects. One government alone wished that the trou- 
bles which had, during three generations, distracted England, might 
be eternal. All other governments, whether republican or mon. 
archical, whether Protestant or Roman Catholic, wished to see those 
troubles happily terminated. 

The nature of the long contest between the Stuarts and their Parlia- 
ments was indeed very imperfectly apprehended by foreign states- 
men: but no statesman could fail to perceive the effect which that 
contest had produced on the balance of power in Europe. In ordinary 


circumstances, the sympathies of the courts of Vienna and Madrid 


* Barillon, April 6-26; Lewis to Barillon, 14-24. 


: as HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 299 


would doubtless have been with a prince struggling against subjects, 
and especially with a Roman Catholic prince struggling against hereti- 
cai subjects: but all such sympathies were now overpowered by a 
stronger feeling. The fear and hatred inspired by the greatness, the 
injustice, and the arrogance of the French King were at the height. 
His neighbours might well doubt whether it were more dangerous to 
be at war or at peace with him. For in peace he continued to plunder 
and to outrage them; and they had tried the chances of war against 
him in vain. In this perplexity they looked with intense anxiety 
towards England. Would she act on the principles of the Triple Al- 
liance or on the principles of the treaty of Dover? On that issue 
depended the fate of all her neighbours. With her help Lewis might 
yet be withstood: but no help could be expected from her till she was 
at unity with herself. Before the strife between the throne and the 
Parliament began, she had been a power of the first rank: on the day 
on which that strife terminated she became a power of the first rank 
again: but while the dispute remained undecided, she was condemned 
to inaction and to vassalage. She had been great under the Plan- 
tagenets and Tudors: she was again great under the princes who 
reigned after the Revolution: but, under the Kings of the House of 
Stuart, she was a blank in the map of Europe. She had lost one class 
of energies, and had not yet acquired another. That species of force, 
which, in the fourteenth century had enabled her to humble France 
and Spain, had ceased to exist. That species of force, which, in the 
eighteenth century, humbled France and Spain once more, had not 
yet been called into action. The government was no longer a limited 
monarchy after the fashion of the middle ages. It had not yet be- 
come a limited monarchy after the modern fashion. With the vices 
of two different systems it had the strength of neither. The elements 
of our polity, instead of combining in harmony, counteracted and 
neutralised each other. All was transition, conflict, and disorder. 
The chief business of the sovereign was to infringe the privileges of 
the legislature. The chief business of the legislature was to encroach 
on the prerogatives of the sovereign. The King readily accepted 
foreign aid, which relieved him from the misery of being dependent 
on a mutinous Parliament. The Parliament refused to the King the 
means of supporting the national honor abroad, from an apprehen- 
sion, too well founded, that those means might be employed in order 
to establish despotism at home. The effect of these jealousies was 
that our country, with all her vast resources, was of as little weight in 
Christendom as the duchy of Savoy or the duchy of Lorraine, and 
certainly of far less weight than the small province of Holland. 
France was deeply interested in prolonging this state of things.* 


——. 


_* Imight transcribe half Barillon’s correspondence in proof of this proposi- 
tion; but I will quote only one passage, in which the policy of the French gov- 
ernment towards Engiand is exhibited concisely and with perfect clearness. 

On peut tenir pour un maxime indubitable quel’accord du Roy d’ Angleterre 


‘ 


300 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


All other powers were deeply interested in bringing it to a close. The 
general wish of Europe was that James would govern in conformity 
with law and with public opinion. From the Escurial itself came 
letters, expressing an earnest hope that the new King of England 
would be on good terms with his Parliament and his people.* From 
the Vatican itself came cautions against immoderate zeal for the 
Roman Catholic faith. Benedict Odescalchi, who filled the papal 
chair under the name of Innocent the Eleventh, felt, in his character 
of temporal sovereign, all those apprehensions with which other 
princes watched the progress of the French power. He had also 
grounds of uneasiness which were peculiar to himself. It was a 
happy circumstance for the Protestant religion that, at the moment 
when the last Roman Catholic King of England mounted the throne, 
the Roman Catholic Church was torn by dissension, and threatened 
with a new schism. A quarrel similar to that which had raged in 
the eleventh century between the Emperors and the Supreme Pontifis 
had arisen between Lewis and Innocent. Lewis, zealous even to 
bigotry for the doctrines of the Church of Rome, but tenacious of his 
regal authority, accused the Pope of encroaching on the secular rights 
of the French Crown, and was in turn accused by the Pope of en- 
croaching on the spiritual power of the keys. The King, haughty as 
he was, encountered a spirit even more determined than his own. In- 
nocent was, in all private relations, the meekest and gentlest of men: 
but when he spoke officially from the chair of St. Peter, he spoke in 
the tones of Gregory the Seventh and of Sixtus the Fifth. The dis- 
pute became serious. Agents of the King were excommunicated. 
Adherents of the Pope were banished. The King made the cham- 
pions of his authority Bishops. The Pope refused them institution. 
They took possession of the Episcopal palaces and revenues: but they 
were incompetent to perform the Episcopal functions. Before the 
struggle terminated, there were in France thirty prelates who could 
not confirm or ordain. + 


avec son parlement, en quelque maniére qu’il se fasse, n’est pas conforme aux 
intéréts de V.M. Jeme contente de penser cela sane m’en ouvrir 4 personne, et 
. ‘i . ‘ . Feb. 28, 
je cache avec soin mes sentimens a cet égard.”’—Barillon to Lewis, 4,7 49,108¢ 
That this was the real secret of the whole policy of Lewis towards our country 


mae pertectl y understood at Vienna. The Emperor Leopold wrote thus to James, 
arch 30, 


Agen 9; 1689: ‘‘Galli id unum agebant, ut, perpetuas inter Serenitatem vestram | 
et ejusdem populos fovendo simultates, relique Christianze Europe tanto 
securius insultarent.”’ ; 

* ‘*Que sea unidocon su reyno, y en todo buena intelligencia con el parla- 
mento.’'—Despatch from the oh he Spain to Don Pedro Ronquillo, March 16-26, 
1685. This despatch is in the archives of Samancas, which contain a great mass 
of papers relating to English affairs. Copies of the most interesting of those 
papers are in the possession of M. Guizot, and were by him lent tome. It is 
with peculiar pleasure that at this time, acknowledge this mark of the friend- 
ship of so great man. (1848.) 

+ Few English readers will be desirous to go deep into the history of this quar- 
rel. Summaries will be found in Cardinal Bausset’s Life of Bossuet, and in Vol- 
taire’s Age of Lewis XIV. 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 301 


Had any prince then living, except Lewis, been engaged in such a 
dispute with the Vatican, he would have had all Protestant govern- 
ments on his side. But the fear and resentment which the ambition 
and insolence of the French King had inspired were such that who- 
ever had the courage manfully to oppose him was sure of public 
sympathy. Hven Lutherans and Calvinists, who had alwas detested 
the Pope, could not refrain from wishing him success against a tyrant 
who aimed at universal monarchy. It was thus that, in the present 
century, many who regarded Pius the Seventh as Antichrist were 
well pleased to see Antichrist confront the gigantic power of Napo- 
leon. 

The resentment which Innocent felt towards France disposed him 
to take a mild and liberal view of the affairsof England. The re- 
turn of the English people to the fold of which he was the shepherd 
would undoubtedly have rejoiced his soul. But he was too wise a 
man to believe that a nation so bold and stubborn, could be brought 
back to the Church of Rome by the violent and unconstitutional exer- 
cise of ire authority. It was not difficult to foresee that, if James 
attempted to promote the interests of his religion by illegal and un- 

opular means, the attempt would fail; the hatred with which the 
heretical islanders regarded the true faith would become fiercer and 
stronger than ever; and an indissoluble association would be created 
in their minds between Protestantism and civil freedom, between 
Popery and arbitrary power. In the meantime the King would be an 
object of aversion and suspicion to his people. England would still 
be, as she had been under James the First, under Charles the First, 
and under Charles the Second, a power of the third rank; and France 
would domineer unchecked beyond the Alps and the Rhine. On the 
other hand, it was probable that James, by acting with prudence and 
moderation, by strictly observing the laws and by exerting himself to 
win the confidence of his Parliament, might be able to obtain, for the 
professors of his religion, a large measure of retief. Penal statutes 
would go first. Statutes imposing civil incapacities would soon fol- 
low. In the meantime, the English King and the English nation 
united might head th: European coalition, and might oppose an in- 
superable barrier to the cupidity of Lewis. 

innocent was confirmed in his judgment by the principal English- 
men who resided at his court. Of these the most illustrious was 
Philip Howard, sprung from the noblest houses of Britain, grandson, 
on one side, of an Earl of Arundel, on the other, of a Duke of Lennox. 
Philip hadlong been a member of the sacred college: he was common- 
ly designated as the Cardinal of England; and he was the chief coun- 
Sellor of the Holy See in matters relating to his country. He had- 
been driven into exile by the outcry of Protestant bigots; and a mem- 
ber of his family, the unfortunate Stafford, had fallen a victim to 
their rage. But neither the Cardinal’s own wrongs, nor those of his. 
~ house, had so heated his mind as to make him a rash adviser. Every 


ee 


. Pin, 


302 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.’ 


letter, therefore, which went from the Vatican to Whitehall, recom- 
mended patience, moderation, and respect for the prejudices of the 
English people.* 

In the mind of James there wasa great conflict. Weshould do him 
injustice if we supposed that a state of vassalage was agreeable to his 
temper. He loved authority and business. He had a high sense of 
his own personal dignity. ay, he was not altogether destitute of a 
sentiment which bore some aflinity to patriotism. It galled his soul to 
think that the kingdom which he ruled was of far less account in the 
world than many states which possessed smaller natural advantages; 
and he listened eagerly to foreign ministers when they urged him to 
assert the dignity of his rank, to place himself at the head of a great 
confederacy, to become the protector of injured nations, and to 
tame the pride of that power which held the Continent in 
awe. Such exhortations made his heart swell with emotions un- 
known to his careless and effeminate brother. But those emotions 
were soon subdued by a stronger feeling. A vigorous foreign 
policy necessarily implied a conciliatory domestic policy. It was im- 
possible at once to confront the might of France and to trample on 
the liberties of England. The executive government could undertake 
nothing great without the support of the Commons, and could obtain 
their support only by acting in conformity with their opinion. ‘Thus 
James found that the two things which he most desired could not be 
enjoyed together. His second wish was to be feared and respected 
abroad. But his first wish was to be absolute master at home. Be- 
tween the incompatible objects on which his heart was set, he, fora 
time, went irresolutely to and fro. The conflict in his own breast gave 
to his public acts astrange appearance of indecision and insincerity. 
Those who, without the clue, attempted to explore the maze of his 
politics were unable to understand how the same man could be, in the 
same week, so haughty and somean. Even Lewis was perplexed by 
the vagaries of an ally who passed, in a few hours, from homage to 
defiance, and from defiance to homage. Yet, now that the whole 
conduct of James is before us, this inconsistency seems to admit of a 
simple explanation. 

At the moment of his accession he was in doubt whether the 
kingdom would peaceably submit to hisauthority. The Exclusionists, 
lately so powerful, might rise in arms against him. He might be in 
great need of French money and French troops. He was therefore, 
during some days, content to be asycophant and a mendicant. He 
humbly apologised for daring to call his Parliament together without — 
the consent of the French government. He begged hard for a French 
subsidy, He wept with joy over the French bills of exchange. He 
sent to Versailles a special embassy charged with assurances of his 


~ * Burnet, i. 661, and Letter from Rome; Dodd’s Church History, part viii. 
book i. art. 1. 


ims 
\ 
‘ae 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 303 


‘ \ 
+ oat 


gratitude, attachment, andsubmission. But scarcely had the embassy 
parted when his feelings underwent a change. He had been every- 
where proclaimed without one riot, without one seditious outcry- 
From all cornersof the island he received intelligence that his subjects 
were tranquil and obedient. His spirit rose. The degrading relation 
in which he stood to a foreign power seemed intolerable. He became 
proud, punctilious, boastful, quarrelsome. He held such high lan- 
guage about the dignity of his crown and the balance of power that 
his whole court fully expected a complete revolution in the foreign 
politics of the realm. He commanded Churchill to send home a 
‘minute report of the ceremonial of Versailles, in order that the 
honours with which the English embassy was received there might be 
repaid, and not more than repaid, to the representative of France at 
itehall. The news of this change was received with delight at 
Madrid, Vienna, and the Hague.* Lewis was at first merely diverted. 
“My good ally talks big,” he said; ‘‘ but he is as fond of my pistoles 
as ever his brother was.” Soon, however, the altered demeanour of 
James, and the hopes with which that demeanour inspired both 
the branches of the House of Austria, began to call for more serious 
notice. Aremarkable letter is still extant, in which the French King 
intimated a strong suspicion that he had been duped, and that the 
very money which he had sent to Westminster would be employed 
against him.+ 

By this time England had recovered from the sadness and anxiety 
caused by the death of the goodnatured Charles. The Tories were 
loud in professions of attachment to their new master. The hatred 
of the Whigs was kept down by fear. That great mass which is not 

_ steadily Whig or Tory, but which inclines alternately to Whiggism 
and to Toryism, was still on the Tory side. The reaction which had 
tal the dissolution of the Oxford parliament had not yet spent 
its force. 

The King early put the loyalty of his Protestant friends to the proof. 
While he was a subject, he had been in the habit of hearing mass with 
closed doors in a small oratory which had been fitted up for his wife. 
He now ordered the doors to be thrown open, in order that all who 
came to pay their duty to him might see the ceremony. When the 
host was elevated there was a strange confusion in the antechamber. 
The Roman Catholics fell on their knees: the Protestants hurried out 
of the room. Soon a new pulpit was erected in the palace; and, during 
Lent, a series of sermons was preached there by Popish divines, to 
the great discomposure of zealous churchmen. t 


4 


, Consultations of the Spanish Council of State on April 2-12 and April 16-26 
in the Archives of Sima neas. : . 


t Lewis to Barillon, Say 1685; Burnet, i. 623. 
: bat s 
$ Life of Jamesthe Second, i.5. Barillon, ce 19, 1685; Evelyn’s Diary, March 
b, 1684-5 oe 


| 
ny 
Pernt 


804 | HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


A more serious innovation followed. Passion week came;,and the 
King determined to hear mass with the same pomp with which his 
predecessors had been surrounded when they repaired to the temples 
of the established religion. He announced his intention to the three 
members of the interior cabinet, and requested them to attend him. 
Sunderland, to whom all religions were the same, readily consented. 
Godolphin, as Chamberlain of the Queen, had already been in the 
habit of giving her his hand when she repaired to her oratory, and 
felt no scruple about bowing himself officially in the house of 
Rimmon. But Rochester was greatly disturbed. His influence inthe 
country arose chiefly from the opinion entertained by the clergy and 
by the Tory gentry, that he was a zealous and uncompromising friend 
of the Church. His orthodoxy had been considered as fully atoning 
for faults which would otherwise have made him the most unpopular 
man in the kingdom, for boundless arrogance, for extreme violence 
of temper, and for manners almost brutal.* He feared that, by com- 
plying with the royal wishes, he should greatly lower himself in the 
estimation of his party, After some altercation he obtained per- 
mission to pass the holidays out of town. All the other great civil 
dignitaries were ordered to be at their posts on Easter Sunday. The 
rites of the Church of Rome were once more, after an interval of a 
hundred and twenty-seven years, performed at Westminster with 
regal splendour. The Guards were drawn out. The Knights of the 
Garter wore their collars. 'The Duke of Somerset, second in rank 
among the temporal nobles of the realm, carried the sword of state. 
A long train of great lords accompanied the King to his seat. But it 
was remarked that Ormond and Halifax remained in the antechamber. 
A few years before they had gallantly defended the cause of James 
against some of those who now pressed past them. Ormond had 
borne no share in the slaughter of Roman Catholics. Halifax had 
courageously pronounced Stafford not guilty. As the timeservers 
who had pretended to shudder at the thought of a Popish king, and 
who had shed without pity the innocent blood of a Popish peer, now 
elbowed each other to get near a Popish altar, the accomplished 
Trimmer might, with some justice, indulge his solitary pride in that 
unpopular nickname. + 

Within a week after this ceremony James made a far greater sacri- 
fice of his own religious prejudices than he had yet called on any of 
his Protestant subjects to make. He was crowned on the twenty- 
third of April, the feast of the patron saint of the realm. The Ab- 
bey and the Hall were splendidly decorated. The presence of the 
Queen and of the peeresses gave to the solemnity a charm which had 


% ‘*To those that ask boons 
He swears by God’s oons, 
And chides them as if they came there to steal spoons,” 
Lamentable Lory, a ballad, 1684, 
+ Barillon, April 20-30, 1685, 


- 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 305 


_ been wanting to the magnificent inauguration of the late King. Yet 
those who remembered that inauguration pronounced that there was 
a great falling off. ‘The ancient usage was that, before a coronation, 
the sovereign, with all his heralds, judges, councillors, lords, and 
great dignitaries, should ride in state from the Tower of West- 
minster. Of these cavalcades the last and the most glorious was that 
which passed through the capital while the feelings excited by the 
Restoration were still in full vigour. Arches of triumph overhung 
the road. All Cornhill, Cheapside, Saint Paul’s Church Yard, Fleet 
Street, and the Strand, were lined with scaffolding. The whole city 
had thus been admitted to gaze on royalty in the most splendid and 
solemn form that royalty could wear. James ordered an estimate to 
be made of the cost of such a procession, and found that it would 
amount to about half as much as he proposed to expend in covering 
his wife with trinkets. He accordingly determined to be profuse 
where he ought to have been frugal, and niggardly where he might 
pardonably have been profuse. More than a hundred thousand 
pounds were laid out in dressing the Queen, and the procession from 
the Tower was omitted. The folly of this course is obvious. If 
pageantry be of any use in politics, it is of use as a means of striking 
the imagination of the multitude. It is surely the height of absurdity 
to shut out the populace from a show of which the main object is to 
make an impression on the populace. James would have shown a 
more judicious munificence and a more judicious parsimony, if he 
had traversed London from east to west with the accustomed pomp, 
and had ordered the robes of his wife to be somewhat less thickly set 
with pearls and diamonds. His example was, however, long followed 
by his successors; and sums, which, well employed, would have af- 
forded exquisite gratification to a large part of the nation, were 
squandered on an exhibition to which only three or four thousand 
privileged persons were admitted. At length the old practice was 
partially revived. On the day of the coronation of Queen Victoria 
there was a procession in which many deficiencies might be noted, 
but which was seen with interest and delight by half a million of her 
subjects, and which undoubtedly gave far greater pleasure, and called 
forth far greater enthusiasm, than the more costly display which was 
witnessed by a select circle within the Abbey. 

__, James had ordered Sancroft to abridge the ritual. The reason pub- 

_ licly assigned was that the day was too short for all that was to be 
done. But whoever examines the changes which were made will see 
that the real object was to remove some things highly offensive to 
the religious feelings of a zealous Roman Catholic. The Commun- 
ion Service was not read. The ceremony of presenting the sovereign 
with a richly bound copy of the English Bible, and of exhorting him 
to prize above all earthly treasures a volume which he had been 

_ taught to regard as adulterated with false doctrine, was omitted. 

hat remained, however, after all this curtailment, might well have 


306 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


raised scruples in the mind of a man who sincerely believed the 
Church of England to be a heretical society, within the pale of 
which salvation was not to be found. The King made an oblation 
on the altar. He appeared to join in the petitions of the Litany 
which was chaunted by the Bishops. He received from those false 
prophets the unction typical of a divine influence, and knelt with the 
semblance of devotion, while they called down upon him that Holy 
Spirit of which they were, in his estimation, the malignant and ob- 
durate foes. Such are the inconsistencies of human nature that this 
man, who, from a fanatical zeal for his religion, threw away three 
kingdoms, yet chose to commit what was little short of an act of 
apostasy, rather than forego the childish pleasure of being invested 
with the gewgaws symbolical of kingly power.* 

Francis Turner, Bishop of Ely, preached. He was one of those ~ 
writers Who still affected the obsolete style of Archbishop Williams 
and Bishop Andrews. ‘The sermon was made up of quaint conceits, 
such as seventy years earlier might have been admired, but such as 
moved the scorn of a generation accustomed to the purer eloquence 
of Sprat, of South, and of Tillotson. King Solomon was King James. 
Adonijah was Monmouth. Joab was a Rye House conspirator; 
Shimei, a Whig libeller: Abiathar, an honest but misguided old 
Cavalier. One phrase in the Book of Chronicles was construed to 
mean that the King was above the Parliament; and another was cited 
to prove that he alone ought to command the militia. Towards the 
close of the discourse the orator very timidly alluded to the new and 
embarrassing position in which the Church stood with reference to 
the sovereign, and reminded his hearers that the Emperor Constan- 
tius Chlorus, though not himself a Christian, had held in honour 
those Christians who remained true to their religion, and had treated 
with scorn those who sought to earn his favour by apostasy. ‘The 
service in the Abbey was followed by a stately banquet in the Hall, 
the banquet by brilliant fireworks, and the fireworks by much bad 
pocetry.+ 

This may be fixed upon as the moment at which the enthusiasm of. 
the Tory party reached the zenith. Ever since the accession of the 


* From Adda’s despatch of ae 1686, and from the expressions of the Pére 


d’ Orléans (Histoire des Révolutions d’ Angleterre, liv. xi.), itis clear that rigid 
Catholics thought the King’s conduct indefensible. 

+ London Gazette; Gazette de France; Life of James the Second, ii. 10; His- 
tory of the Coronation of King James the Second and Queen Mary, by Francis 
Sandford, Lancaster Herald, fol. 1687; Evelyn’s Diary, May 21, 1683 Despatch 
of the Dutch Ambassadors, April 10-20, 1685; Burnet, i. 628; Kachard, iii. 734; 
A sermon preached before their Majesties King James the Second and Queen 
Mary at their Coronation in Westminster Abbey, April 23, 1685, by Francis Lord 
Bishop of Ely, and Lord Almoner. I have seen an Italian account of the Coro- 
nation which was published at Modena, and which is chiefly remarkable for the 
skill with which the writer sinks the fact that the prayers and psalms were in 

- English, and that the Bishops were heretics. 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 307 


ea : 
new King, addresses had been pouring in which expressed profound 
yeneration for his person and office, and bitter detestation of the van- 
 quished Whigs. The magistrates of Middlesex thanked God for 
having confounded the designs of those regicides and exclusionists 
who, not content with having murdered one blessed monarch, were 
bent on destroying the foundations of monarchy. The city of Glou- 
cester execrated the bloodthirsty villains who had tried to deprive 
His Majesty of his just inheritance. The burgesses of Wigan as- 
sured their sovereign that they would defend him against all plotting 
Achitophels and rebellious Absaloms. The grand jury of Suffolk 
expressed a hope that the Parliament would proscribe all the exclu- 
sionists. Many corporations pledged themselves never to return to 
the House of Commons any person who had voted for taking away 
‘the birthright of James. Even the capital was profoundly obse- 
qguious. The lawyers and the traders vied with each other in servil- 
ity. Inns of Court and Inns of Chancery sent up fervent professions 
of attachment and submission. All the great commercial societiés, 
the East India Company, the African Company, the Turkey Com- 
pany, the Muscovy Company, the Hudson’s Bay Company, the Mary- 
land Merchants, the Jamaica Merchants, the Merchant Adventurers, 
declared that they most cheerfully complied with the royal edict 
which required them still to pay custom. Bristol, the second city of 
the island, echoed the voice of London. But nowhere was the spirit 
of loyalty stronger than in the two Universities. Oxford declared 
that she would never swerve from those religious principles which 
bound her to obey the King without any restrictions or limitations. 
Cambridge condemned, in severe terms, the violence and treachery 
of those turbulent men who had maliciously endeavoured to turn the 
stream of succession out of the ancient channel.* 

Such addresses as these filled, during a considerable time, évery 
number of the London Gazette. But it was not only by addressing 
that the Tories showed their zeal. The writs for the new Parliament 
had gone forth, and the country was agitated by the tumult of a gen- 
eral election. No election had ever taken place under circumstances 
‘so favourable to the Court. Hundreds of thousands whom the Popish 

lot had scared into Whiggism had been scared back by the Rye 
louse plot into Toryism. In the counties the government could de- 
pend on an overwhelming majority of the gentlemen of three hun 
dred a year and upwards, and on the clergy almost toa man. Those 
boroughs which had once been the citadels of Whiggism had recent- 
ly been deprived of their charters by legal sentence, or had prevented 
le sentence by voluntary surrender. ‘They had now been recon- 
Stituted in such a manner that they were certain to return members 
devoted to the crown. Where the townsmen could not be trusted, 


ob See the London Gazette during the months of February, March, and April, 


308 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


the freedom had been bestowed on the neighbouring squires. In some 
of the small western corporations, the constituent bodies were in 
great part composed of Captains and Lieutenants of the Guards. The 
returning officers were almost everywhere in the interest of the court. 
In every shire the Lord Lieutenant and his deputies formed a power- 
ful, active, and vigilant committee, for the purpose of cajoling and 
intimidating the freeholders. The people were solemnly warned 
from thousands of pulpits not to vote for any Whig candidate, as 
they should answer it to Him who had ordained the powers that be, 
and who had pronounced rebellion a sin not less deadly than witch- 
craft. All these advantages the predominant party not only used to 
the utmost, but abused in so shameless a manner that grave and re- 
flecting men, who had been true to the monarchy in peril, and who 
bore no love to republicans and schismatics, stood aghast, and augured 
from such beginnings the approach of evil times.* 

Yet the Whigs, though suffering the just punishment of their er- 
rors, though defeated, disheartened, and disorganized, did not yield 
without an effort. They were still numerous among the traders and 
artisans of the towns, and among the yeomanry and peasantry of the 
open country. In some districts, in Dorsetshire for example, and in 
Somersetshire, they were the great majority of the population. In 
the remodelled boroughs they could do nothing: but, in every county 
where they had a chance, they struggled desperately. In Bedford- 
shire, which had lately been represented by the virtuous and unfor- 
tunate Russell, they were victorious on the show of hands, but were 
beaten at the poll.t In Essex they polled thirteen hundred votes to 
eighteen hundred.{ At the election for Northamptcnshire the com- 
mon people were so violent in their hostility to the court candidate 
that a body of troops was drawn out in the marketplace of the coun- 
ty town, and was ordered to load with ball.§ The history of the 
contest for Buckinghamshire is still more remarkable. The Whig 
candidate, Thomas Wharton, eldest son of Philip Lord Wharton, 
was a man distinguished alike by dexterity and by audacity, and des- 
tined to play a conspicuous, though not always a respectable, part in 
the politics of several reigns. He had been one of those members of 
the House of Commons who had carried up the Exclusion Bill to the 
bar of the Lords. The court was therefore bent on throwing him 


_ a nh 


* It would be easy to filla volume with what Whig historians and pamphlet- 
eers have written on this subject. I will cite only one witness, a churchman an 
a Tory. ‘‘Elections,’? says Evelyn, ‘‘ were thought to be very indecently car- 
ried on in most places. God give a better issue of it than some expect!” May 
10, 1685. Again he says, ‘‘The truth is there were many of the new members 
whose elections and returns were universally condemned.’’ May 22. 

+ This fact I learned from a newsletter in the library of the Royal Institution. 
Van Citters mentions the strength of the Whig party in Bedfordshire, ’ 

+ Bramston’s memoirs. 

§ Reflections on a Remonstrance and Protestation of all the good Protestants 
of this Kingdom, 1689; Dialogue between two Friends, 1689. aly. 


> 


x 
a 
: 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 309° 


_ out by fair or foul means. The Lord Chief Justice Jeffreys himself 
came down into Buckinghamshire, for the purpose of assisting a gen- 
tleman named Hacket, who stood on the high Tory interest. <A strat- 
agem was devised which, it was thought, could not fail of suc- 

cess. It was given out that the polling would take place at Ailes- 
bury; and Wharton, whose skill inall the arts of electioneering was 
unrivalled, made his arrangements on that supposition. At a mo- 
ment’s warning the Sheriff adjourned the poll to Newport Pagnell. 
Wharton and his friends hurried thither, and found that Hacket, who 
was in the secret, had already secured every inn and lodging. The 
Whig freeholders were compelled to tie their horses to the hedges, 
and to sleep under the open sky in the meadows which surround the 
little town. It was with the greatest difficulty that refreshments could 
be procured at such short notice for so large a number of men and 
beasts, though Wharton, who was utterly regardless of money when 
his ambition and party spirit were roused, disbursed fifteen hundred 
pounds in one day, an immense outlay for those times. Injustice 
seems, however, to have animated the courage of the stoutuearted 

eomen of Bucks, the sons of the constituents of John Hampden. 

_ Not only was Wharton at the head of the poll; but he was able to 

Spare his second vo-es to a man of moderate opinions, and to throw 
out the Chief Justice’s candidate.* 

In Cheshire the contest lasted six days. The Whigs polled about 
seventeen hundred votes, the Tories about two thousand. The com- 
mon people were vehement on the Whig side, raised the cry of 
“Down with the Bishops,” insulted the clergy in the streets of Ches- 
ter, knocked down one gentleman of the Tory party, broke the win- 
dows and beat the constables. The militia was called out to quell 
the riot, and was kept assembled, in order to protect the festivities of 
the conquerors. When the poll closed, a salute of five great guns 
from the castle proclaimed the triumph of the Church and the Crown 
to the surrounding country. The bells rang. The newly elected 
members went in state to the City Cross, accompanied by a band of 
music, and by a long train of knights and squires. The procession, 
as it marched, sang ‘‘ Joy to Great Cesar,” a loyal ode, which had 
lately been written by Durfey, and which, though, like ali Durfey’s 
Writings, utterly contemptible, was, at that time, almost as popular 
as Lillibullero became a few years later.t Round the Cross the 
trainbands were drawn up in order: a bonfire was lighted: the Ex- 
clusion Bill was burned: and the health of King James was drunk 
with loud acclamations. The following day was Sunday. In the 
morning the militia lined the streets leading to the Cathedral. The 


* Memoirs of the Life of Thomas Marquess of Wharton, 1715. 

+t See the Guardian, No. 67; an exquisite specimen of Addison’s peculiar man- 
ner. It would be difficult to find in the works of any other writer such an in- 
stance of benevolence delicately flavoured with contempt 


310 ' HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


two knights of the shire were escorted with great pomp to their choir 
by the magistracy of the city, heard the Dean preach a sermon, prob- 
ably on the duty of passive obedience, and were afterwards feasted 
by the Mayor.* 

In Northumberland the triumph of Sir John Fenwick, a courtier 
whose name afterwards obtained amelancholy celebrity, was attended 
by circumstances which excited interest in London, and which were 
thought not unworthy of being mentioned in the despatches of for- 
eign ministers. Newcastle was lighted up with great piles of coal. 
The steeples sent forth a joyous peal. A copy of the Exclusion Bill, 
and a black box, resembling that which, according to the popular 
fable, contained the contract between Charles the Second and Lucy 
Walters, were publicly committed to the flames, with loud acclama- 
tions.+ 

The general result of the elections exceeded the most sanguine ex- 
pectations of the court. James found with delight that it would be 
unnecessary for him to expend a farthing in buying votes. He said 
that, with the exception of about forty members, the House of Com- 
mons was just such as he should himself have named.{ And this 
House of Commons it was in his power, as the law then stood, to keep 
to the end of his reign. 

Secure of parliamentary support, he might now indulge in the lux- 
ury of revenge. His nature was not placable; and, while still a sub- 
ject, he had suffered some injuries and indignities which might move 
even a placable nature to fierce and lasting resentment. One set of 
men in particular had, with a baseness and cruelty beyond all exam- 
ple and all description, attacked his honour and his life, the witnesses 
of the plot. He may well be excused for hating them; since, even 
at this day, the mention of their names excites the disgust and horror 
of all sects and parties. 

Some of these wretches were already beyond the reach of human 
justice. Bedloe had died in his wickedness, without one sign of 
remorse or shame.§ Dugdale had followed, driven mad, men said. 
by the Furies of an evil conscience, and with loud shrieks imploring 
those who stood round his bed to take away Lord Stafford.|| Car- 
stairs, too, was gone. His end had been all horror and despair; and, 
with his last breath, he had told his attendants to throw him into a 
ditch like a dog, for that he was not fit to sleep in a Christian burial 
ground.§] But Oates and Dangerfield were still within the reach of 
the stern prince whom they had wronged. James, a short time 


* The Observator, April 4, 1685. 

+ Despatch of the Dutch Ambassadors, April 10-20, 1685. 

+ Burnet, i. 626, 

Pe faithful account of the Sickness, Death, and Burial of Captain Bedlow, 
1680; Narrative of Lord Chief Justice North. 

| Smith’s ir Sori of the Popish Plot, 1685. 


{ Burnet, i. 43 aa 


aia 


‘ 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 311 


before his accession, had instituted a civil suit against Oates for 
defamatory words; and a jury had given damages to the enormous 
amount of a hundred thousand pounds.* The defendant had been 
taken in execution, and was lying in prison as a debtor, without 
hope of release. Two bills of indictment against him for perjury 
had been found by the grand jury of Middlesex, a few weeks before 
the death of Charles. Soon after the close of the elections the trial 
camle on. . 

Among the upper and middle classes Oates had few friends left. 
The most respectable Whigs were now convinced that, even if his 
narrative had some foundation in fact, he had erected on that founda- 
tion a vast superstructure of romance. A-considerable number of 
low fanatics, however, still regarded him-as a public benefactor. 
These people well knew that, if he were convicted, his sentence 
would be one of extreme severity, and were therefore indefatigable 
in their endeavours to manage an escape. Though he was as yet in 
confinement only for debt, he was put into irons by the authorities of 
the King’s Bench prison; and even so he was with difficulty kept in 
safe custody. The mastiff that guarded his door was poisoned; and, 
on the very night preceding the trial, a ladder of ropes was intro- 
duced into the cell. 

On the day in which Titus was brought to the bar, Westminster 
Hall was crowded with specta ors, among whom were many Roman 
Catholics, eager to see the misery and humiliation of their perse- 
cutor.} A few years earlier his short neck, his legs uneven, the 
vulgar said, as those of a badger, his forehead low as that of a baboon, 
his purple cheeks, and his monstrous length of chin, had been fa- 
miliar to all who frequented the courts of law. He had then been 
the idol of the nation. Wherever he had appeared, men had un- 

covered their heads to him. The lives and estates of the magnates of 

the realm had been at his mercy. Times had now changed; and 
many, who had formerly regarded him as the deliverer of his country, 
shuddered at the sight of those hideous features on which villany 
seemed to be written by the hand of God.t 

It was proved, beyond all possibility of doubt, that this man had by 
false testimony deliberately murdered several guiltless persons. He 
called in vain on the most eminent members of the Parliaments which 
had rewarded and extolled him to give evidence in his favour. Some 
of those whom he had summoned absented themselves. None of 
them said anything tending to his vindication. One of them, the 

Earl of Huntingdon, bitterly reproached him with having deceived 

the Houses and drawn on them the guilt of shedding innocent blood. 


* See the proceedings in the Collection of State Trials. 

+ Evelyn’s Diary, May 7, 1685. 

+ There remain many pictures of Oates. The most striking descriptions of 
his person are in North’s Examen, 225, in Dryden’s Absalom and Achitophel, 
_ and in a broadside entitled, A Hue and Cry after T. O. 


" 


312 . HISTORY OF ENGLAND, a) 


The Judges browbeat and reviled the prisoner with an intemperance 
which, even in the most atrocious cases, ill becomes the judicial 
character. He betrayed, however, no sign of fear or of shame, and 
faced the storm of invective which burst upon him from bar, bench, 
and witness box, with the insolence of despair. He was convicted 
on both indictments. His offence, though, in a moral light, murder 
of the most aggravated kind, was, in the eye of the law, merely a 
misdemeanour. The tribunal, however, was desirous to make his 
punishment more severe than that of felons or traitors, and not merely 
to put him to death, but to put him to death by frightful torments. 
He was sentenced to be stripped of his clerical habit, to be pilloried 
in Palace Yard, to be led round Westminster Hall with an inscription 
declaring his infamy over his head, to be pilloried again in front 
of the Royal Exchange, to be whipped from Aldgate to Newgate, 
and, after an interval of two days, to be whipped from Newgate to 
Tyburn. If, against all probability, he should happen to survive this 
horrible infliction, he was to be kept close prisoner during life. Five 
times every year he was to be brought forth from his dungeon and 
exposed on the pillory in different parts of the capital.* This 
rigorous sentence was rigorously executed. On the day on which 
Oates was pilloried in Palace Yard he was mercilessly pelted and ran 
some risk of being pulled in pieces.t But in the City his partisans 
mustered in great force, raised a riot, and upset the pillory.{ They 
were, however, unable to rescue their favourite. It was supposed 
that he would tr y to escape the horrible doom which awaited him by 
swallowing poison. All that he ateand drank was therefore carefully 
inspected. On the following morning he was brought forth to undergo 
his first fogging. At an early hour an innumerable multitude filled 
all the streets from Aldgate to the Old Bailey. ‘The hangman laid on 
the lash with such unusual severity as showed that he had received 
special instructions. The blood ran down in rivulets. For a time 
the criminal showed a strange constancy: but at last his stubborn 
fortitude gave way. His bellowings were frightful to hear. He 
swooned several times; but the scourge still continued to descend. 
When he was unbound, it seemed that he had borne as much as the 
human frame can bear without dissolution. James was entreated to 
remit the second flogging. His answer was short and clear: ‘‘He 
shall go through with it, if he has breath in his body.” An pipes ; 
was made to obtain the Queen’s intercession; but she indignantly 
refused to say a word in favour of such a wr etch. After an interval! | 
of only forty-eight hours, Oates was again brought out of his 
dungeon. He was unable to stand, and it was necessary to drag him 


* The proceedings eu ps is at length in the Collection of State Trials. 


? 


+ Gazette de aariess 
+ Despatch of the Dutch vernaaaaaace May 19-29, 1685. 


Sa? § 
= J 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 313 


‘to Tyburn on a sledge. He seemed quite insensible; and the Tories 
reported that he had stupified himself with strong drink. A person 
‘who counted the stripes on the second day said that they were seventeen 
hundred. The bad man escaped with life, but so narrowly that his 
ignorant and bigoted admirers thought his recovery miraculous, and 
appealed to it as a proof of his innocence. ‘The doors of the prison 
closed upon him. During many months he remained. ironed in the 
darkest hole of Newgate. It was said that in his cell he gave him- 
self up to melancholy, and sate whole days uttering deep groans, his 
arms folded, and his hat pulled over his eyes. It was not in England 
alone that these events excited strong interest. Millions of Roman 
Catholics, who knew nothing of our institutions or of our factions, 
had heard that a persecution of singular barbarity had raged in our 
island against the professors of the true faith, that many pious men 
had suffered martyrdom, and that Titus Oates had been the chief 
murderer. There was, therefore, great joy in distant countries when 
it was known that the divine justice had overtaken him. Engrev- 
ings of him, looking out from the pillory, and writhing at the cait’s 
tail, were circulated all over Europe; and epigrammatists, in many 
languages, made merry with the doctoral title which he pretended 
to have received from the University of Salamanca, and remarked 
that, since his forehead could not be made to blush, it was but rea- 
sonable that his back should do so.* 

Horrible as were the sufferings of Oates, they did not equal his 
crimes. The old law of England, which had been suffered to become 
obsolete, treated the false witness, who had caused death by means of 
perjury, as a murderer.+ This was wise and righteous; for such a 
Witness is, in truth, the worst of murderers. To the guilt of shedding 
innocent blood he has added the guilt of violating the most solemn 
engagement into which man can enter with his fellow men, and of 
making institutions, to which it is desirable that the public should 
look with respect and confidence, instruments of frightful wrong and 


* Evelyn’s Diary, May 22, 1685; Eachard, iii. 741; Burnet, i, 637; Observator, 
May 27, 1685: Oates’s Eixwy, 89; Einav Sporodoty ov, 1697; Commons’ 
Journals of May, June, and July, 1689; Tom Brown’sadvice to Dr. Oates. Some 
interesting circumstances are mentioned in a broadside, printed for A. Brooks, 
Charing Cross, 1685. I have seen contemporary French and Italian pamphlets 
containing the history of the trial andexecution. A print of Titusin the pillory 
Was published at Milan, with the following curious inscription: ‘‘ Questo 6 il 
naturale ritratto di Tito Otez, o vero Oatz, Inglese, posto in berlina, uno de’ 
pee palt professori della religion protestante, acerrimo persecutore de’ Catto- 

Ci, € gran spergiuro.” Ihave also seen a Dutch engraving of his punishment, 
with some Latin verses, of which the following are a specimen: 


“At Doctor fictiis non fictos pertulit ictus, 
A tortore datos haud molli in corpore gratos, 
Disceret ut vere scelera ob commissa rubere.”’ 
The anagram of his name, ‘‘ Testis Ovat,’”’ may be found on many prints pub- 
lished in different countries. 4 ae oe 
+ Blackstone’s Commentaries, Chapter of Homicide. 


. 
aa 
re Y, 


314 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


objects of general distrust. The pain produced by ordinary murdet 
bears no proportion to the pain produced by murder of which the 
courts of justice are made the agents. 'The mere extinction of life is 
avery small part of what makes an execution horrible. The pro- 
longed mental agony of the sufferer, the shame and misery of all con- 
nected with him, the stain abiding even to the third and fourth gen- 
eration, are things far more dreadful than death itself. In general 
it may be safely affirmed that the father of a large family would 
rather be bereaved of all his children by accident or by disease than 
lose one of them by the hands of the hangman. Murder by false 
testimony is therefore the most aggravated species of murder; and 
Oates had been guilty of many such murders. Nevertheless the pun- 
ishment which was inflicted upon him cannot be justified. In sen- 
tencing him to be stripped of his ecclesiastical habit and imprisoned 
for.life, the judges exceeded their legal power. They were undoubt- 
edly competent to inflict whipping; nor had the law assigned a limit 
to the number of stripes. But the spirit of the law clearly was that 
no misdemeanour should be punished more severely than the most 
atrocious felonies. The worst felon could only be hanged. ‘The 
judges, as they believed, sentenced Oates to be scourged to death. 
That the law was defective is not a sufficient excuse: for defective 
laws should be altered by the legislature, and not strained by the tri- 
bunals; and least of all should the law be strained for the purpose of 
inflicting torture and destroying life. That Oates was a bad man is 
not a sufficient excuse; for the guilty are almost always the first to 
suffer those hardships which are afterwards used as precedents against 
the innocent. Thus it was in the present case. Merciless flogging 
soon became an ordinary punishment for political misdemeanours of 
no very aggravated kind. Men were sentenced, for words spoken 
against the government, to pains so excruciating that they, with un- 
feigned earnestness, begged to be brought to trial on capital charges, 
and sent to the gallows. Happily the progress of this great evil was 
speedily stopped by the Revolution, and by that article of the Bill of © 
Rights which condemns all cruel and unusual punishments. 

The villany of Dangerfield had not, like that of Oates, destroyed © 
many innocent victims; for Dangerfield had not taken up the trade of 
a witness till the plot had been blown upon and till juries had become 
incredulous.* He was brought to trial, not for perjury, but for the 
less heinous offence of libel. He had, during the agitation caused by 
the Exclusion Bill, put forth a narrative containing some false and 


* According to Roger North the judges decided that Dangerfield, having been 
Eolas convicted of perjury, was incompetent to be a witness of the plot. 
ut this is one among many instances of Roger’s inaccuracy. Itappears, from the 
report of the trial of Lord Castlemaine in June 1680, that, after much altercation 
between counsel, and much consultation among the judges of the different co 
in Westminster Hall, Dangerfield was sworn and suffered to tell his story; but 
the jury very properly gave no credit to his testimony. 


al 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 315 


odious imputations on the late and on the present King. For this 
‘publication he was now, after the lapse of five years, suddenly taken 
up, brought before the Privy Council, committed, tried, convicted, 
and sentenced to be whipped from Aldgate to Newgate and from 
Newgate to Tyburn. The wretched man behaved with great effront- 
ery during the trial; but, when he heard his doom, he went.into ago- 
nies of despair, gave himself up for dead, and chose a text for his 
funeral sermon. His forebodings were just. He was not, indeed, 
scourged quite so severely as Oates had been; but he had not Oates’s 
iron strength of body and mind. After the execution Dangerfield was 
put into a hackney coach and was taken back to prison. As he 
passed the corner of Hatton Garden, a'fory gentleman of Gray’s Inn, 
named Francis, stopped the carriage, and cried out with brutal levity, 
“Well, friend, have you had your heat this morning?” The bleed- 
‘ing prisoner, maddened by this insult, answered withacurse. Francis 
instantly struck him in the face with a cane which injured the eye. 
Dangerfield was carried dying into Newgate. This dastardly outrage 
roused the indignation of the bystanders. They seized Francis, and 
were with difficulty restrained from tearing him to pieces. The ap- 
pearance of Dangerfield’s body, which had been frightfully lacerated 
by the whip, inclined many to believe that his death was chiefly, if 
not wholly, caused by the stripes which he had received. The gov- 
ernment and the Chief Justice thought it convenient to lay the whole 
blame on Francis, who, though be seems to have been at worst guilty 
only of aggravated manslaughter, was tried and executed for murder. 
His dying speech is one of the most«curious monuments of that age. 
The savage spirit which had brought him to the gallows remained 
with him to the last. Boasts of his loyalty and abuse of the Whigs 
were mingled with the parting ejaculations in which he commended 
hissoul to the divine mercy. An idle rumour had been circulated that 
his wife was in love with Dangerfield, who was eminently handsome 
and renowned for gallantry. The fatal blow, it was said, had been 
prompted by jealousy. The dying husband, with an earnestness, 
half ridiculous half pathetic, vindicated the lady’s character. She 
was, he said, a virtuous woman: she came of a loyal stock, and, if 
she had been inclined to break her marriage vow, would at least have 
selected a Tory and a churchman for her paramour.* 
About the same time a culprit, who bore very little resemblance to 


_ * Dangerfield’s trial was not reported; but I have seen a concise account of it 
ina contemporary broadside. Anabstract of the evidence against Francis, and 
his d@. speech, will be found in the Collection of State Trials. See Eachard, 
ii. 741. Burnet’s narrative contains more mistakes than lines. Seealso North's 
Examen, 256, the sketch of Dangerfield’s life inthe Bloody Assizes, the Observa- 
tor of July 29, 1685, and the poem entitled ‘‘ Dangerfield’s Ghost to Jeffreys.”? In 
the very rare volume entitled ‘ Succinct Genealogies, by Robert. Halstead,”’ 
Lord Peterbough says that Dangerfield, with whom he had had some intercourse, 
Was “a young man who appeared under a decent figure, a serious behaviour, 
M4 and with words that did not seem to proceed from a common understanding.” 


t me 


7 


= 
~ 


316 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


Oates or Dangerfield, appeared on the floor of the Court of King’s 
Bench. No eminent chief of a party has ever passed through many 
years of civil and religious dissension with more innocence than 
Richard Baxter. He belonged to the mildest and most temperate sec- 
tion of the Puritan body. He was a young man when the civil war 
broke out.. He thought that the right was on the side of the Houses; 
and he had no scruple about acting as chaplain to a regiment in the 
parliamentary army: but his clear and somewhat sceptical under- 
standing, and his strong sense of justice, preserved him from all ex- 
cesses. He exerted himself to check the fanatical violence of the 
soldiery. He condemned the proceedings of the High Court of Jus- - 
tice. In the daysof the Commonwealth he had the boldness to ex- 
press, on many occasions, and once even in Cromwell’s presence, love 
and reverence for the ancient institutions of the country. While the 
royal family was in exile, Baxter’s life was cliefly passed at Kidder- 
minster in the assiduous discharge of parochial duties. He heartily 
concurred in the Restoration, and was sincerely desirous to bring” 
about an union between Episcopalians and Presbyterians. For, with 
a liberty rare in his time, he considered questions of ecclesiastical 
polity as of small account when compared with the great principles 
of Christianity, and had never, even when prelacy was most odious 
to the ruling powers, joined in the outcry against Bishops. The at- 
tempt to reconcile the contending factions failed. Baxter cast in his 
lot with his proscribed friends, refused the mitre of Hereford, quitted 
the parsonage of Kidderminster, and gave himself up almost wholly 
to study, His theological writings, though too moderate to be pleas- 
ing to the bigots of any party, had an immense reputation. Zealous” 
Churchmen called him a Roundhead; and many Nonconformists ae- 
cused him of Erastianism and Arminianism. But the integrity of 
his heart, the purity of his life, the vigour of his faculties, and the ex- 
tent of his attainments were acknowledged by the best and wisest 
men of every persuasion. His political opinions, in spite of the op- 
pression which he and his brethren had suffered, were moderate. He 
was friendly to that small party which was hated by both Whigs and 
Tories, He could not, he said, join in cursing the Trimmers, when 
he remembered who it was that had blessed the peacemakers.* 

In a Commentary on the New Testament he had complained, with 
some bitterness, of the persecution which the Dissenters suffered. 
That men who, for not using the Prayer Book, had been driven 
from their homes, stripped of their property, and locked up in dun- 
geons, should dare to utter a murmur, was then thought a high 
crime against the State and the Church. Roger Lestrange, the 
champion of the government and the oracle of the clergy, sounded 
_the note of war in the Observator. An information was filed. Bax- 


* Baxter's preface to Sir Matthew Hale’s Judgment of the Nature of True Re- 
ligion, 1684. : 


* HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 317 - 


ter begged that he might be allowed some time to prepare for his 
defence. It was on the day on which Oates was pilloried in Palace 
Yard that the illustrious chief of the Puritans, oppressed by age and 
infirmities, came to Westminster Hall to make this request. Jeffreys 
burst into a storm of rage. ‘‘ Not a minute,” he cried, ‘‘ to save 


his life. I can deal with saints as well as with sinners. There 


stands Oates on one side of the pillory; and, if Baxter stood on 
the other, the two greatest rogues in the kingdom would stand to- 
ether.” 
i When the trial came on at Guildhall, a crowd of those who loved 
and honoured Baxter filled the court. At his side stood Doctor 
William Bates, one of the most eminent of the Nonconformist divines. 
Two Whig barristers of great note, Pollexfen and Wallop, appeared 
for the defendant. Pollexfen had scarcely begun his address to the 
jury, when the Chief Justice broke forth: ‘‘ Pollexfen, I know you 
well. Iwill seta mark on you. You are the patron of the faction. 
This is an old rogue, a schismatical knave, a hypocritical villain. He 
hates the Liturgy. He would have nothing but longwinded cant 
without book;” and then his Lordship turned up his eyes, clasped 
his hands, and began to sing through his nose, in imitation of what 
he supposed to be Baxter’s style of praying, ‘‘ Lord, we are thy peo- 
ple, thy peculiar people, thy dear people.” Pollexfen gently re- 
minded the court that his late Majesty had thought Baxter deserving 
of a bishopric. ‘‘And what ailed the old blockhead then,” cried 
Jeffreys, ‘‘that he did not take it?” His fury now rose almost to 


madness. He called Baxter a dog, and swore that it would be po 


more than justice to whip such a villain through the whole City. - 
Wallop interposed, but fared no better than his leader. ‘‘ You are 
in all these dirty causes, Mr. Wallop,’ said the Judge. ‘‘ Gentlemen 
of the long robe ought to be ashamed to assist such factious knaves.” 
The advocate made another attempt to obtain a hearing, but to no 


purpose. ‘‘If you do not know your duty,” said Jeffreys, ‘‘I will 


teach it you.” 

Wallop sate down; and Baxter himself attempted to put in a word. 
But the Chief Justice drowned all expostulation in a torrent of 
Tibaldry and invective, mingled with scraps of Hudibras. ‘‘ My 
Lord,” said the old man, ‘‘ I have been atthe blamed by Dissenters 
for speaking respectfully of Bishons.” ‘‘ Baxter for Bishops!” cried 
the Judge, ‘‘ that’s a merry conceit indeed. J know what you mean 
by Bishops, rascals like yourself, Kidderminster Bishops, factious 
snivelling Presbyterians!” Again Baxter essayed to speak, and 
again Jeffreys bellowed ‘‘ Richard, Richard, dost thou think we will 
let thee poison the court? Richard, thou art an old knave. Thou 
hast written books enough to load a cart, and every book as full of 
sedition as an egg is full of meat. By the grace of God, Pll look 
alter thee. I see a great many of your brotherhood waiting to 
know what will befall their mighty Don. And there,” he con- 

M. E. i.—11 


318 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


tinued, fixing his savage eye on Bates, ‘‘there is a Doctor of the 
party at your elbow. But, by the grace of God Almighty, I will 
crush you all.” 

Baxter held his peace. But one of the junior counsel for the de- 
fence made a last effort, and undertook to show that the words of 
which complaint was made would not bear the construction put on 
them by the information. With this view he began to read the 
context. In amoment he was roared down. ‘‘ You shan’t turn the 
court into a conventicle.” The noise of weeping was heard from 


some of those who surrounded Baxter. ‘‘Snivelling calves!’ said 


the Judge. 

Witnesses to character were in attendance, and among them were 
several clergymen of the Established Church. But the Chief Jus- 
tice would hear nothing. ‘‘ Does your Lordship think,” said Baxter, 
‘*that any jury will convict a man on such a trial as this?” ‘‘I war- 
rant you, Mr. Baxter,” said Jeffreys: ‘‘ don’t trouble yourself about 


that.” Jeffreys was right. The Sheriffs were the tools of the gov-~ 


ernment. The jurymen, selected by the Sheriffs from among the 
fiercest zealots of the Tory party, conferred for a moment, and re- 
turned a verdict of Guilty. ‘‘ My Lord,” said Baxter, as he left the 
court, ‘‘there was once a Chief Justice who would have treated me 
very differently.” He alluded to his learned and virtuous friend Sir 
Matthew Hale. ‘‘ There is not an honest man in England,” answered 
Jeffreys, ‘‘ but looks on thee as a knave.” * 

The sentence was, for those times, a lenient one. What passed in 
conference among the judges cannot be certainly known. It was be- 
lieved among the Nonconformists, and is highly probable, that the 


Chief Justice was overruled by his three brethren. He proposed, it 


is said, that Baxter should be whipped through London at the cart’s 
tail. The majority thought that an eminent divine, who, a quarter 
of a century before, had been offered a mitre, and who was now in 
his seventieth year, would be sufficiently punished for a few sharp 
words by fine and imprisonment.+ é 

The manner in which Baxter was treated by a judge, who was a 
member of the cabinet and a favourite of the Sovereign, indicated, 
in a manner not to be mistaken, the feeling with which the govern- 
ment at this time regarded the Protestant Nonconformists. But 
already that feeling had been indicated by still stronger and more 
terrible signs. The Parliament of Scotland had met. James had 
purposely hastened the session of this body, and had postponed the 
session of the English Houses, in the hope that the example set at 
Edinburgh would produce a good effect at Westminster. For the 


* See the Observator of February 25, 1685, the information in the Collection of 
State Trials, the account of what passed in court given by Calamy, Life of Bax 
ter, chap. xiv., and the very curious extracts from the Baxter MSS. in the Lif, 
by Orme, published in 1880. 

+ Baxter MS. cited by Orme. 


~ 


coy 
Po ha / 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 319 


legislature of his northern kingdom was as obsequious as those pro- 


vincial Estates which Lewis the Fourteenth still suffered to play at 
some of their ancient functions in Britanny and Burgundy. None 
but an Episcopalian could sit in the Scottish Parliament, or could 
even vote for a member, and in Scotland an Episcopalian was always 
a Tory or a timeserver. From an assembly thus constituted, little 
opposition to the royal wishes was to be apprehended; and even the 
assembly thus constituted could pass no law which had not been 
previously approved by a committee of courtiers. 

All that the government asked was readily granted. In a financial 
point of view, indeed, the liberality of the Scottish Estates was of 


- jittle consequence. They gave, however, what their scanty means 


permitted. They annexed in perpetuity to the crown the duties 
which had been granted to the late King, and which in his time had 
been estimated at forty thousand pounds sterling a year. They also 
settled on James for life an additional annual income of two hun- 
dred and sixteen thousand pounds WScots, equivalent to eighteen 
thousand pounds sterling. The whole sum which they were able to 


bestow was about sixty thousand a year, little more than what was 


poured into the English Exchequer every fortnight.* 

Having little money to give, the Estates supplied the defect by 
loyal professions and barbarous statutes. The King, in a letter which 
Was read to them at the opening of their session, called on them in 
vehement language to provide new penal laws against the refractory 
Presbyterians, and expressed his regret that business made it impos- 
sible for him to propose such laws in person from the throne. His 


commands were obeyed. A statute framed by his ministers was 


promptly passed, a statute which stands forth even among the stat- 
utes of that unhappy country at that unhappy period, preeminent in 
atrocity. It was enacted, in few but emphatic words, that whoever 
should preach in a conventicle under a roof, or should attend, either 
as preacher or as hearer, a conventicle in the open air, should be 
punished with death and confiscation of property.+ 

This law, passed at the King’s instance by an assembly devoted to 
his will, deserves especial notice. For he has been frequently repre- 
sented by ignorant writers as a prince rash, indeed, and injudicious 
in his choice of means, but intent on one of the noblest ends which 
a ruler can pursue, the establishment of entire religious liberty. Nor 
can it be denied that some portions of his life, when detached from 
the rest and superficially considered, seem to warrant this favourable 
view of his character. 

While a subject he had been, during many years, a persecuted 
man; and persecution had produced its usual effect on him. His 


-* Act Parl. Car. Il. March 29, 1661; Jac. VII. April 28, 1685, and May 18, 1685. 
+ Act Parl. Jac. VII. May 8, 1685; Observator, June 20, 1865; Lestrange evi- 
dently wished to see the precedent followed in England. 


a 


320 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


mind, dull and narrow as it was, had profited under that sharp dis 
cipline. While he was excluded from the Court, from the Admi- 
ralty, and from the Council, and was in danger of being also excluded 
from the throne, only because he could not help believing in tran- 
substantiation and in the authority of the see of Rome, he made such 
rapid progress in the doctrines of toleration that he left Milton and 
Locke behind. What, he often said, could be more unjust, than to 
visit speculations with penalties which ought to be reserved for acts? 
What more impolitic than to reject the services of good soldiers, sea- 
men, lawyers, diplomatists, financiers, because they hold unsound 
opinions about the number of the sacraments or the pluripresence of 
saints? He learned by rote those commonplaces which all sects repeat 
so fluently when they are enduring oppression, and forget so easily 
when they are able to retaliate it. Indeed he rehearsed his lesson so 
well, that those who chanced to hear him on this subject gave him 
credit for much more sense and much readier elocution than he 
really possessed. His professions imposed on some charitable per- 
sons, and perhaps imposed on himself. But his zeal for the, rights 
of conscience ended with the predominance of the Whig party. 
When fortune changed, when he was no longer afraid that others 
would persecute him, when he had it in his power to persecute others, 
his real propensities began to show themselves. He hated the Puri- 
tan sects with a manifold hatred, theological and political, hereditary 
and personal. He regarded them as the foes of Heaven, as the foes 
of all legitimate authority in Church and State, as his great-grand- 
mother’s foes and his grandfather’s, his father’s and his mother’s, his 
brother’s and his own. He, who had complained so loudly of the 
laws against Papists, now declared himself unable to conceive how 
men could have the impudence to propose the repeal of the laws 
against Puritans.* He, whose favourite theme had been the injustice 
of requiring civil functionaries to take religious tests, established in 
Scotland, when he resided there as Viceroy, the most rigorous relig- 
ious test that has ever been known in the empire.t He, who had 
expressed just indignation when the priests of his own faith were 
hanged and quartered, amused himself with hearing Covenanters 
shriek and seeing them writhe while their knees were beaten flat in 
the boots.{ In this mood he became King; and he immediately de- 
manded and obtained from the obsequious Estates of Scotland, as the 


* His own words reported by himself. Life of James the Second, i. 656. Orig. 


em. 

+ Act Parl. Car. II. August 31, 1681. 

t Burnet, i. 588; Wodrow. III. v. 2. Unfortunately the Acta of the Scottish 
Privy Council during almost the whole administration of the Duke of York are — 
wanting. (1848.) This assertion has been met by a direct contradiction. But 
the fact is exactly as I have stated it. There is in the Acta of the Scottish Priy. 
Council a hiatus extending from August 1678 to August 1682. The Duke of Yor 
began to reside in Scotland in December 1679. He left Scotland, never to return, 
in May 1682. (1857). 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 821 


surest pledge of their loyalty, the most sanguinary law that has ever 
in our island been enacted against Protestant Nonconformists. 

With this law the whole spirit of his administration was in perfect 
harmony. The fiery persecution, which had raged when he ruled 
Scotland as vicegerent, waxed hotter than ever from the day on 
which he became sovereign. Those shires in which the Covenanters 
were most numerous were given up to the license of the army. 
With the army was mingled a militia, composed of the most violent 
and profligate of those who called themselves Episcopalians. Pre- 
eminent among the bands which oppressed and wasted these un- 
happy districts were the dragoons commanded by John Graham of 
Claverhouse. The story ran that these wicked men used in their 
revels to play at the torments of hell, and to call each other by the 
names of devils and damned souls.* The chief of this Tophet, a 
soldier of distinguished courage and professional skill, but rapacious 
and profane, of violent temper and of obdurate heart, has left a name 
which, wherever the Scottish race is settled on the face of the globe, 
is mentioned with a peculiar energy of hatred. To recapitulate all 
the crimes, by which this man, and men like him, goaded the peas- 
antry of the Western Lowlands into madness, would be an endless 
task. A few instances must suffice; and all those instances shall be 
taken from the history of a single fortnight, that very fortnight in 
which the Scottish Parliament, at the urgent request of James, en- 
acted a new law of unprecedented severity against Dissenters. 

John Brown, a poor carrier of Lanarkshire, was, for his singular 
piety, commonly called the Christian carrier. Many years later, 
.when Scotland enjoyed rest, prosperity, and religious freedom, old 
men who remembered the evil days described him as one versed in 
divine things, blameless in life, and so peaceable that the tyrants 
_ could find no offence in him except that he absented himself from 

the public worship of the Episcopalians. On the first of May he 
was cutting turf, when he was seized by Claverhouse’s dragoons, 
rapidly examined, convicted of nonconformity, and sentenced to 
death. It is said that, even among the soldiers, it was not easy to 
find an executioner. For the wife of the poor man was present; she 
Jed one little child by the hand: it was easy to see that she was about 
to give birth to another; and even those wild and hardhearted men, 
who nicknamed one another Beelzebub and Apollyon, shrank from 
the great wickedness of butchering her husband before her face. 
The prisoner, meanwhile, raised above himself by the near prospect 
of eternity, prayed loud and fervently as one inspired, till Claver- 
house, in a fury, shot him dead. It was reported by credible wit- 
nesses that the widow cried out in her agony, ‘‘ Well, sir, well; the 
day of reckoning will come;” and that the murderer replied, ‘‘'To 
man | can answer for what I have done; and as for God, I will take 


* Wodrow, III. ix. 6. 


. oe 
¢ 
vt 


Pa | 


322 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


him into mine own hand.” Yet it was rumoured that even on his 
seared conscience and adamantine heart the dying ejaculations of his 
victim made an impression which was never effaced.* 

On the fifth of May two artisans, Peter Gillies and John Bryce, 
were tried in Ayrshire by a military tribunal consisting of fifteen 
soldiers. The indictment is still extant. The prisoners were 
charged, not with any act of rebellion, but with holding the same 
pernicious doctrines which had impelled others to rebel, and with 
wanting only opportunity to act upon those doctrines. The proceed- 
ing was summary. In a few hours the two culprits were convicted, 
hanged, and flung together into a hole under the gallows.+ 

The eleventh of May was made remarkable by more than one great 
crime. Some rigid Calvinists had from the doctrine of reprobation 
drawn the consequence that to pray for any person who had been 
predestined to perdition was an act of mutiny against the eternal de- 
crees of the Supreme Being. Three poor labouring men, deeply im- 
bued with this unamiable divinity, were stopped by an officer in the 
neighbourhood of Glasgow. They were asked whether they would 
pray for King James the Seventh. They refused to do so except 
under the condition that he was one of the elect. A file of musketeers 
was drawn out. The prisoners knelt down; they were blindfolded; 
and within an hour after they had been arrested, their blood wa# 
lapped up by the dogs.t 


* Wodrow, III. ix. 6. The editor of the Oxford edition of Burnet attempts t 
excuse this act by alleging that Claverhouse was then employed to intercept al 
communication between Argyle and Monmouth, and by supposing that John 
Brown may have been detected in conveying intelligence between the rebel 
camps. Unfortunately for this hypothesis John Brown was shot on the first of 
May, when both Argyle and Monmouth were in Holland, and when there was no 
insurrection in any part of our island. 

+ Wodrow, III. ix. 6. 

t Wodrow, III. ix. 6. Ithas been confidently asserted, by persons who have 
not taken the trouble to look at the authority to which I have referred, that 1 
have grossly calumniated these unfortunate men; that I do not understand the 
Calvinistic theology; and that it is impossible that members of the Church of 
Scotiand can have refused to pray for any man onthe ground that he was not 
one of the elect. 

Ican only refer to the narrative which Wodrow has inserted in his history, 
and which he justly calls plain and natural. That narrative is signed by two 
eyewitnesses, and Wodrow, before he published it, submitted it to a third eye- 
witness, who pronounced it strictly accurate. From that narrative 1 will ex- 
tract the only words which bear on the point in question: ‘*‘ When all the three 
were taken, the officers consulted among themselves, and, withdrawing to the 
west side of the town, questioned the prisoners, particularly if they would pray 
for King James Vi. They answered, they would pray for all within the election 
of grace. Balfour said, Do you question the King’s election? They answered, 
sometimes they questioned their own. Upon which he swore dreadfully, and 
said they should die presently, because they would not pray for Christ’s vicege- 
rent, and so without one word more, commanded Thomas Cook to go to 
prayers, for he should die.” 

In this narrative Wodrow saw nothing improbable; and I shall not easily be 
convinced that any writer now living understands the feelings and opinions of 
the Covenanters better than Wodrow did. (1857.) 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 328 


While this was done in Clydesdale, an act not less horrible was 
perpetrated in Eskdale. One of the proscribed Covenanters, over- 
come by sickness, had found shelter in the house of a respectable 
widow, and had died there. The corpse was discovered by the Laird 
of Westerhall, a petty tyrant who had, in the days of the Covenant, 
professed inordinate zeal for the Presbyterian Church, who had, since 
the Restoration, purchased the favour of the government by apostasy, 
and who felt towards the party which he had deserted the implacable 
hatred of an apostate. This man pulled down the house of the poor 
woman, carried away her furniture, and, leaving her and her younger 
children to wander in the fields, dragged her son Andrew, who was 
still a lad, before Claverhouse, who happened to be marching through 
that part of the country. Claverhouse was just then strangely lenient. 
Some thought that he had not been quite himself since the death of 
the Christian carrier, ten days before. But Westerhall was eager to 
signalise his loyalty, and extorted a sullen consent. The guns were 
loaded, and the youth was told to pull his bonnet over his face. He. 
refused, and stood confronting his murderers with the Bible in his 
hand. ‘I can look you in the face,” he said; ‘‘I have done nothing 
of which I need be ashamed. But how will you look in that day 
when you shall be judged by what is written in this book?” He fell 
dead, and was buried in the moor.* 

On the same day two-women, Margaret Maclachlin and Margaret 
Wilson, the former an aged widow, the latter a maiden of eighteen, 
suffered death for their religion in Wigtonshire. They were offered 
their lives if they would consent to abjure the cause of the insurgent 
Covenanters, and to attend the Episcopal worship. They refused; 
and they were sentenced to be drowned. They were carried to a 
spot which the Salway overflows twice a day, and were fastened to 
stakes fixed in the sand between high and low water mark. The 
elder sufferer was placed near to the advancing flood, in the hope 
that her last agonies might terrify the younger into submission. The 
sight was dreadful. But the courage of the survivor was sustained 
by an enthusiasm as lofty as any that is recorded in martyrology. She 
saw the sea draw nearer and nearer, but gave no sign of alarm. She 
prayed and sang verses of psalms till the waves choked her voice. 
After she had tasted the bitterness of death, she was, by a cruel mercy, 
unbound and restored to life. When she came to herself, pitying 
friends and neighbours implored her to yield. ‘‘ Dear Margaret, only 
say, God save the King!” The poor girl, true to her stern theology, 
gasped out, ‘‘ May God save him, if it be God’s will!” Her friends 
crowded round the presiding officer. ‘‘She has said it; indeed, sir, 
she has said it.” ‘‘ Will she take the abjuration?” he demanded. 


* Wodrow, III. ix.6. Cloud of Witnesses. 


y? rt 
s F a 
= 


824 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. a 


‘‘Never!” she exclaimed. ‘‘Iam Christ’s: let me go!” And the 
waters closed over her for the last time,* ~ . 

Thus was Scotland governed by that prince whom ignorant men 
have represented as a friend of religious liberty, whose misfortune it 
was to be too wise and too good for the age in which he lived. Nay, 
even those laws which authorised him to govern thus were in his 
judgment reprehensibly lenient. While his officers were committing 
the murders which have just been related, he was urging the Scottish 
Parliament to pass a new Act compared with which all former Acts 
might be called merciful. 

In England his authority, though great, was circumscribed by 
ancient and noble laws which even the Tories would not patiently 
have seen him infringe. Here he could not hurry Dissenters before 
military tribunals, or enjoy at Council the luxury of seeing them 
swoon in the boots. Here he could not drown young girls for refus- 
ing to take the abjuration, or shoot poor countrymen for doubting 
whether he was one of the elect. Yet even in England he continued 
to persecute the Puyitans as far as his power extended, till events 
which will hereafter be related induced him to form the design of 
uniting Puritans and Papists in a coalition for the humiliation and 
spoliation of the established Church. 

One sect of Protestant Dissenters indeed he, even at this early period 
of his reign, regarded with some tenderness, the Society of Friends. 
His partiality for that singular fraternity cannot be attributed to re- 
ligious sympathy; for, of all who acknowledge the divine mission of 
Jesus, the Roman Catholic and the Quaker differ most widely. It 
may seem paradoxical to say that this very circumstance constituted 
a tie between the Roman Catholic and the Quaker; yet such was 
really the case. For they deviated in opposite directions so far 
from what the great body of the nation regarded as right, that even 
liberal men generally considered them both as lying beyond the pale of 
the largest toleration. Thus the two extreme sects, precisely because 
they were extreme sects, had a common interest distinct from the in- 
terest of the intermediate sects. The Quakers were also guiltless of all 
offence against James and his House. They had not been in exist- 
ence as a community till the war between his father and the Long 
Parliament was drawing towards a close. They had been cruell 
persecuted by some of the revolutionary governments. They had, 
since the Restoration, in spite of much ill usage, submitted them- 


* Wodrow, III. ix. 6. The epitaph of Margaret Wilson, in therchurchyard at 
Wigton, is printed in the Appendix to the Cloud of Witnesses: 


‘*Murdered for owning Christ supreme 
Head of his Church. and no more crime, 
But her not owning Prelacy, 

And not abjuring Presbytery, 
Within the sea, tied to a stake, 
She suffered for Christ Jesus’ sake.”’ 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 525 


selves meekly to the royal authority. For they had, though reason- 
ing on premises which the Anglican divines regarded as heterodox, 
arrived, like the Anglican divines, at the conclusion, that no excess of 
tyranny on the part of a prince can justify active resistance on the 
part of a subject. No libel on the government had ever been traced 
to a Quaker.* In no conspiracy against the government had a 
Quaker been implicated. The society had not joined in the clamout 
for the Exclusion Bill, and had solemnly condemned the Rye Hous¢ 
plot as a hellish design and a work of the devil.| Indeed, the Friends 
then took very little part in civil contentions; for they were not, as 
now, congregated in large towns, but were generally engaged in 
agriculture, a pursuit from which they have been gradually driven by 
the vexations consequent on their strange scruple about paying tithe. 
‘They were, therefore, far removed from the scene of political strife. 
They also, even in domestic privacy, avoided on principle all political 
conversation. Forsuch conversation was, in their opinion, unfavour- 
able to their spirituality of mind, and tended to disturb the austere 
composure of their deportment. The yearly meetings of that age 
repeatedly admonished the brethren not to hold discourse touching 
affairs - state.{ Even within the memory of persons now living 
those grave elders who retained the habits of an earlier generation 
systematically discouraged such worldly talk.§ It was natural that 
James should make a wide distinction between these harmless people 
and those fierce and reckless sects which considered resistance to 
tyranny as a Christian duty which had, in Germany, France, and Hol- 
land, made war on legitimate princes, and which had, during four 
generations, borne peculiar enmity to the House of Stuart. 

It happened, moreover, that it was possible to grant large relief to 
the Roman Catholic and to the Quaker without mitigating the suffer- 
ings of the Puritan sects. A law was in force which imposed severe 
penalties on every person who refused to take the oath of supremacy 
When required to do so. This law did not affect Presbyterians, In- 
dependents, or Baptists; for they were all ready to call God to wit- 
ness that they renounced all spiritual connection with foreign prelates 
and potentates. But the Roman Catholic would not swear that the 
Pope had no jurisdiction in England,.and the Quaker would not 
Swear to anything. On the other hand, neither the Roman Catholic 
nor the Quaker was touched by the Five Mile Act, which, of all the 
laws in the Statute Book, was perhaps the most annoying to the 
Puritan Norconformists. | 


* See the letter to King Charles IT. prefixed to Barclay’s Apology. 

+Sewel’s History of the Quakers, book x. 

¢ Minutes of Yearly Meetings, 1639, 1690. 

§ Clarkson on Quakerism; Peculiar Customs, chapter v. 

| After this passage was written, I found inthe British Museum, a manuscript 
(Harl. MS. 7506) entitled ‘“‘An Account of the Seizures, Sequestations, great 
Spoil and Havock made upon the Estates of the several Protestant Dissenters 


326 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


The Quakers had a powerful and zealous advocate at court. 
Though, as a class, they mixed little with the world, and shunned 
politics as a pursuit dangerous to their spiritual interésts, one of 
them, widely distinguished from the rest by station and fortune, 
lived in the highest circles, and had constant access to the royal ear. 
This was the celebrated William Penn. His father had held great 
naval commands, had been a Commissioner of Admiralty, had sate 
in Parliament, had received the honour of knighthood, and had been 
encouraged to expect a peerage. The son. had been liberally edu- 
cated, and had been designed for the profession of arms, but had, — 
while still young, injured his prospects and disgusted his friends 
by joining what was then generally considered as a gang of crazy 
heretics. He had been sent sometimes to the Tower, and sometimes 
to Newgate. He had been tried at the Old Bailey for preaching in 
defiance of the law. After a time, however, he had been reconciled 
to his family, and had succeeded in obtaining such powertul pro- 
tection that, while all the gaols of England were filled with his 
brethren, he was permitted, during many years, to profess his 
opinions without molestation. Towards the close of the late reign 
he had obtained, in satisfaction of an old debt due to him from the 
crown, the grant of an immense region in North America. In this 
tract, then peopled only by Indian. hunters, he liad invited his per- 
secuted friends to settle. His colony was still in its infancy when 
James mounted the throne. 

Between James and Penn there had long been a familiar acquaint- 
ance. The Quaker now became a courtier, and almost a favourite. 
He was every day summoned from the gallery into the closet, and 
sometimes had long audiences while peers were kept waiting in the 
antechambers. It was noised abroad that he had more real power 
to help and hurt than many nobles who filled high offices. He was_ 
soon surrounded by flatterers and supplicants. [lis house at Ken- 
sington was sometimes thronged, at his hour of rising, by more than 
two hundred suitors.* He paid dear, however, for this seemin 
prosperity. Even his own sect looked coldly on him, and requite 
his services with obloquy. He was loudly accused of being a Papist, 
nay, a Jesuit. Some ailirmed that he had been educated at St. 


called Quakers, upon Prosecution of old Statutes made against Papist and 
Popish Recusants.’’ The manuscript is marked as having belonged to James, 
and appears to have been given by his confidential servant, Colonel Graham. to 
Lord Oxford. This circumstance appears to me to confirm the view which I 
have taken of the King’s conduct towards the Quakers. 

* Penn’s visits to Whitehall, and levees at Kensington, are described with 
great vivacity, though in very bad Latin, by Gerard Croese. ‘*Sumebat,” he 
says, ‘‘rex sgpe secretum, non horarium, vero horarum plurium, in quo de 
variis rebus cum Penno serio sermonem conferebat, et interim differebat audire 
precipuorum nobilium ordinem, qui hoc interim spatio in procoetone, in 

roximo, regem conventum preesto erant.’’ Of the crowd of suitors at Penn’s 

ouse, Croese says, ‘‘ Visi quandoque de hoc genere hominum non minus 
centum.’’—Historia Quakeriana, lib. ii. 1695. 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. O27 


Omers, and others that he had been ordained at Rome. These 
calumnies, indeed, could find credit only with the undiscerning mul- 
titude ; but with these calumnies were mingled accusations much 
better founded. 

To speak the whole truth concerning Penn isa task which requires 
some courage ; for he is rather a mythical than a historical person. 
Rival nations and hostile sects have agreed in canonising him. 
England is proud of hisname. A great commonwealth beyond the 
Atlantic regards him with a reverence similar to that which the 
Athenians felt for Theseus, and the Romans for Quirinus. The res- 
pectable society of which he was a member honours him, as an 
apostle. By pious men of other persuasions he is generally regarded 
as a bright pattern of Christian virtue. Meanwhile admirers of a very 
different sort have sounded his praises. The French philosophers of 
the eighteenth century pardoned what they regarded as his super- 
stitious fancies in consideration of his contempt for priests, and of 
his cosmopolitan benevolence, impartially 2xtended to all races and 
to all creeds. His name has thus become, throughout all civilised 
countries, a synonyme for probity and philanthropy. 

_ Nor is this high reputation altogether unmerited. Penn was with- 
out doubt a man of eminent virtues. He had a strong sense of re- 
ligious duty and a fervent desire to promote the happiness of man- 
kind. On one or two points of high importance, he had notions 
more correct than were, in his day, common even among men of en- 
larged minds: and as the proprietor and legislator of a province 
which, being almost uninhabited when it came into his possession, 
afforded a clear field for moral experiments, he had the rare good 
fortune of being able to carry his theories into practice without any 
compromise, and yet without any shock to existing institutions. He 
will always be mentioned with honour as a founder of a colony, who 
did not, in his dealings with a savage people, abuse the strength de- 
rived from civilisation, and as a lawgiver who, in an age of persecu- 
tion, made religious liberty the corner stone of a polity. But his 
writings and his life furnish abundant proofs that he was not a man 
of strong sense. He had no skill in reading the characters of others. 
His confidence in persons less virtuous than himself led him into 
great errors and misfortunes. His enthusiasm for one great prin- 
ciple sometimes impelled him to violate other great principles which 
he ought to have held sacred. Nor was his rectitude altogether proof 
against the temptations to which it was exposed in that splendid and 
ih Lut deeply corrupted society, with which he now mingled. 
The whole court was in a ferment with intrigues of gallantry and 
intrigues of ambition. The traffic in honours, places, and pardons 
Was incessant. It was natural that a man who was daily seen at the 
palace, and was known to have free access to majesty, should be 
frequently importuned to use his influence for purposes which a rigid 
morality must condemn. ‘The integrity of Penn had stood firm 


ol 


328 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. \ 


against obloquy and persecution. But now, attacked by royal 
smiles, by female blandishments, by the insinuating eloquence and 
delicate flattery of veteran diplomatists and courtiers, his resolution 
began to give way. ‘Titles and phrases against which he had often 
borne his testimony dropped occasionally from his lips and his pen. 
It would be well if he had been guilty of nothing worse than such 
compliances with the fashions of the world. Unhappily it cannot be 
concealed that he bore a chief part in some transactions condemned, 
not merely by the rigid code of the society to which he belonged, 
but by the general sense of all honest men. He afterwards solemnly 
protested that his hands were pure from illicit gain, and that he had 
never feceived any gratuity from those whom he had obliged, though 
he might easily, while his influence at court lasted, have made a 
hundred and twenty thousand pounds.* To thisassertion full credit 
is due. But bribes may be offered to vanity as well as to cupidity; 
and it is impossible to deny that Penn was cajoled into bearing a 
part in some unjustifiable transactions of which others enjoyed the 
profits. 

The first use which he made of his credit was highly commendable. 
He strongly represented the sufferings of his brethren to the new 
King, who saw with pleasure that it was possible to grant indulgence 
to these quiet sectaries and to the Roman Catholics, without show- 
ing similar favour to other classes which were then under persecu- 
tion. <A list was framed of prisoners against whom proceedings 
had been instituted for not taking the oaths, or for not going to 
church, and of whose loyalty certificates had been produced to the 
government. These persons were discharged, and orders were given 
that no similar proceedings should be instituted till the royal pleasure 
should be further signified. In this way about fifteen hundred 
Quakers, and a still greater number of Roman Catholics, regained 
their liberty.+ 

And now the time had arrived when the English Parliament was 
to meet. ‘The members of the House of Commons who had repaired 
to the capital were so numerous that there was much doubt whether 
their chamber, as it was then fitted up, would afford sufficient ac- 
commodation for them. They employed the days which immedi- 


* “ Twenty thousandinto my pocket; and a hundred thousand into my proy- 
ince.’’—Penn’s Letters to Popple.”’ 

+t These orders, signed by Sunderland, will be found in Sewel’s History. They 
bear date April 18, 1685. They are written in a style singularly obscure and in- 
tricate; but I think that I have exhibited the meaning correctly. I have not 
been able to find any proof that any person. not a Roman Catholic or a Quaker, 
regained his freedom under these orders. See Neal’s History of the Puritans, 
vol. ii. chap. ii.; Gerard Croese, lib. ii. Croese estimates the number of Quakers 
liberated at fourteen hundred and sixty. 


Fill 
57 
: no 
wa | 
1, ex 
a a 
ak 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 829 


the Strand; and Roger Lestrange, who had recently been knighted 
by the King, and returned to Parliament by the city of Winchester, 
took a leading part in their consultations.* 

It soon appeared that a large portion of the Commons had views 
which did not altogether agree with those of the Court. The Tory 
country gentlemen were, with scarcely one exception, desirous to 
maintain the Test Act and the Habeas Corpus Act; and some among 
them talked of voting the revenue only for a term of years. But 
they were perfectly ready to enact severe laws against the Whigs, 
and would gladly have seen all the supporters of the Exclusion Bill 
made incapable of holding office. The King, on the other hand, 
desired to obtain from the Parliament a revenue for life, the admis- 
sion of Roman Catholics to office, and the repeal of the Habeas 
Corpus Act. On these three objects his heart was set; and he was 
by no means disposed to accept as a substitute for them a penal law 
against Exclusionists. Such a law, indeed, would have been posi- 
tively unpleasing to him; for one class of Exclusionists stood high 
in his favour, that class of which Sunderland was the representa- 
tive, that class which had joined the Whigs in the days of the plot, 
merely because the Whigs were predominant, and which had 
changed with the change of fortune. James justly regarded these 
renegades as the most serviceable tools that he could employ. It 
was not from the stouthearted Cavaliers, who had been true to 
him in his adversity, that he could expect abject and unscrupulous 
obedience in his prosperity. The men who, impelled, not by zeal 
for liberty, but merely by selfish cupidity and selfish fear, had as- 
sisted to oppress him when he was weak, were the very men who, 
impelled by the same cupidity and the same fear, would assist him 
to oppress his people now that he was strong. Though vindic- 
tive, he was not indiscriminately vindictive. Not a single instance 
can be mentioned in which he showed a generous compassion to 
those who had opposed him honestly and on public grounds. But he 
frequently spared and promoted those whom some vile motive had 
induced to injure him. For that meanness which marked them out 
as fit implements of tyranny was so precious in his estimation that 
he regarded it with some indulgence even when it was exhibited at 
his own expense. 

The King’s wishes were communicated through several channels 
to the Tory members of the Lower House. The majority was easily 
persuaded to forego all thoughts of a penal law against the Exclu- 


* Barillon pete 1685. Observator, May 27, 1685; Sir J. Reresby’s Memoirs. 


t Lewis wrote to Barillon about this class of Exclusionistsas follows: ‘‘ L’in- 
térét qu’ils auront & effacer cette taiche par des services considérables les 
portera, selon toutes les apparences, & le servir plus utilement que ne pour- 
eae ceux qui ont toujours été les plus attachés &sa personne.’” May 

% . 


330 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


sionists, and to consent that his Majesty should have the revenue for 
life. But about the Test Act and the Habeas Corpus Act the emis- 
saries of the Court could obtain no satisfactory assurances. * 

On the nineteenth of May the session was opened. ‘The benches 
of the Commons presented a singular spectacle. That great party, 
which, in the last three Parliaments had been predominant, had now 
dwindled to a pitiable minority, and was indeed little more than a 
fifteenth part of the House. Of the five hundred and thirteen 
knights and burgesses only a hundred and thirty-five had ever sate 
in that place before. It is evident that a body of menso raw and inex- 
perienced must have been, in some important qualities, far below 
the average of our representative assemblies. + 

The management of the House was confided by James to two 
peers of the kingdom of Scotland. One of them, Charles Middleton, 
after holding high office at Edinburgh, had, shortly before the death 
of the late King, been sworn of the English Privy Council, and ap- 
pointed one of the Secretaries of State. With him was joined Richard 
Graham, Viscount Preston, who had long held the post of Envoy at 
Versailles. 

The first business of the Commons was to elect a Speaker. Who 
should be the man, was a question which had been much debated in 
the cabinet. Guildford had recommended Sir Thomas Meres, who, 
like himself, ranked among the Trimmers. Jeffreys, who missed 
no opportunity of crossing the Lord Keeper, had pressed the claims 
of Sir John Trevor. Trevor had been bred half a pettifogger and 
half agambler, had brought to political life sentiments and principles 
worthy of both his callings, had become a parasite of the Chief Jus- 
tice, and could, on occasion, imitate, not unsuccessfully, the vitu- 
perative style of his patron. The minion of Jeffreys was, as might 
have been expected, preferred by James, was proposed by Middleton, 
and was chosen without opposition. t . 

Thus far all went smoothly. But an adversary of no common 
prowess was watching his time. This was Edward Seymour of 
Berry Pomeroy Castle, member for the city of Exeter. Seymour's 
birth put him on a level with the noblest subjects in Europe. He 
was the right heir male of the body of that Duke of Somerset who 
had been brother in law of King Henry the Eighth, and Protector 
of the realm of England. In the limitation of the dukedom of 
Somerset, the elder son of the Protector had been postponed to the 
younger son. From the younger son the Dukes of Somerset were 
descended. From the elder son was descended the family which 
dwelt at Berry Pomeroy. Seymour’s fortune was large, and his in- 
fluence in the West of England extensive. Nor was the importance 


* Barillon, May 4-14, 1685; Sir John Reresby’s Memoirs. 
+ Burnet, i. 626; Evelyn’s Diary, May 23, 1685. 
t Roger North’s Life of Guildford, 218; Bramston’s Memoirs. 


. 
pa ws 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 331 


derived from descent and wealth the only importance which belonged 
to him. He was one of the most skilful debaters and men of business 
in the kingdom. He had sate many years in the House of Commons, 
had studied all its rules and usages, and thoroughly understood its 
peculiar temper. He had been elected speaker in the late reign 
under circumstances which made that distinction peculiarly honour- 
able. During several generations none but lawyers had been called 
to the chair ; and he was the first country gentleman whose abilities 
and acquirements had enabled him ‘to break that long prescription. 
He had subsequently held high political office, and had sate in the 
Cabinet. But his haughty and unaccommodating temper had given 
s0 much disgust that he had been forced to retire. He was a Tory 
and a Churchman: he had strenuously opposed the Exclusion Bill: 
he had been persecuted by the Whigs in the day of their prosperity; 
and he could therefore safely venture to hold language for which 
any person suspected of republicanism would have been sent to the 
Tower. He had long been at the head of a strong parliamentary 
connection, which was called the Western Alliance, and which in- 
cluded many gentlemen of Devonshire, Somersetshire, and Corn- 
wall* - ' 

In every House of Commons, a member who unites eloquence, 
knowledge, and habits of business, to opulence and illustrious descent, 
must be highly considered. But in a House of Commons from 
which many of the most eminent orators and parliamentary tacti- 
cians of the age were excluded, and which was crowded with people 
who had never heard a debate, the influence of such a man was 

culiarly formidable. Weight of moral character was indeed want- 
ing to Edward Seymour. He was licentious, profane, corrupt, too 
proud to behave with common politeness, yet not too proud to 
pocket illicit gain. But he was so useful an ally, and so mischievous 
an enemy, that he was frequently courted even by those who most 
detested him. + 

He was now in bad humour with the government. His interest 
had been weakened in some places by the remodelling of the western 
boroughs: his pride had been wounded by the elevation of Trevor to 
the chair; and he took an early opportunity of revenging himself. 

On the twenty-second of May the Commons were summoned to 
the bar of the Lords; and the King, seated on his throne, made a 
speech to both Houses. He declared himself resolved to maintain 
the established government in Church and State. But he weakened 
the effect of this declaration by addressing an extraordinary 
admonition to the Commons. He was apprehensive, he said, 
that they might be inclined to dole out money to him from time to 


*North’s Life of Guildford, 228; News from Westminster. 
+ Burnet, i. 382; Letter from Conway to Sir George Rawdon, Dec. 28, 1677, in 
the Rawdon Papérs. 


) = 


$32 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


time, in the hope that they should thus force him to call them fre- 
quently together. But he must warn them that he was not to be so 
dealt with, and that, if they wished him to meet them often they 
must use him well. As it was evident that without money the govern- 
ment could not be carried on, these expressions plainly implied that, 
if they did not give him as much money as he wished, he would take 
it. Strange to say, this harangue was received with loud cheers by 
the Tory gentlemen at the bar. Such acclamations were then usual. 
It has now been, during many years, the grave and decorous usage of 
Parliaments to hear, in respectful silence, all expressions, acceptable 
or unacceptable, which are uttered from the throne.* 

Jt was then the custom that, after the King had concisely explained 
his reasons for calling Parliament together, the minister who held 
the Great Seal should, at more length, explain to the Houses the state 
of public affairs. Guildford, in imitation of his predecessors, Claren- 
don, Bridgeman, Shaftesbury, and Nottingham, had prepared an 
elaborate oration, but found, to his great mortification, that his ser- 
vices were not wanted.+ 

As soon as the Commons had returned to their own chamber, it 
was proposed that they should resolve themselves into a Committee, 
for the purpose of settling a revenue on the King. 

Then Seymour stood up. .How he stood, looking like what he 
was, the chief of a dissolute and high spirited gentry, with the arti- 
ficial ringlets clustering in fashionable profusion round his shoulders, 
and a mingled expression of voluptuousness and disdain in hist eye 
and on his lip, the likenesses of him which still remain enable us to 
imagine. It was not, the haughty Cavalier said, his wish that the 
Parliament should withhold from the crown the means of carrying 
on the Government. But was there indeed a Parliament? Were there 
not on the benches many men who had, as all the world knew, no 
right to sit there, many men whose elections were tainted by corrup- 
tion, many men forced by intimidation on reluctant voters, and many 
men returned by corporations which had no legal existence? Had 
not constituent bodies been remodelled, in defiance of royal charters 
and of immemorial prescription? Had not returning officers been 
everywhere the unscrupulous agents of the Court? Seeing that the 
very principle of representation had been thus systematically at- 
tacked, he knew not how to call the throng of gentlemen which he 
saw around him by the honourable name of a House of Commons. 
Yet never was there a time when it more concerned the public weal 
that the character of Parliament should stand high. Great dangers 
impended over the ecclesiastical and civil constitution of the realm. 
It was matter of vulgar notoriety, it was matter which required no 
proof, that the Test Act, the rampart of religion, and the Habeas 


* London Gazette, May 25, 1685; Evelyn’s Diary, May 22, 1685. 
+ North’s Life of Guildford, 256. 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 333 


- Corpus Act, the rampart of liberty, were marked out for destruction. 
“Before we proceed to legislate on questions so momentous, let us at 
least ascertain whether we really are a legislature. Let our first pro- 
ceeding be to enquire into the manner in which the elections have been 
conducted. And let us look to it that the enquiry be impartial. For, 
if the nation shall find that no redress is to be obtained by peaceful 
methods, we may perhaps ere long suffer the justice which we refuse 
todo” He concluded by moving that, before any supply was gran- 
ted, the House would take into consideration petitions against returns, 
and that no member whose right to sit was disputed should be allowed 
to vote. 

Not a cheer was heard. Not a member ventured to second the 
motion. Indeed, Seymour had said much that no other man could 
have said with impunity. ‘The proposition fell to the ground and 
was not even entered on the journals. But a mighty effect had been 
produced. SBarillon informed his master that many who had not 
dared to applaud that remarkable speech had cordially approved of 
it, that it was the universal subject of conversation throughout Lon- 
don, and that the impression made on the public mind seemed likely 
to be durable.* 

The Commons went into committee without delay, and voted to 
the King, for life, the whole revenue enjoyed by his brother.+ 

The zealous churchmen who formed the majority of the House 
seem to have been of opinion that the promptitude with which they 
had met the wish of James, touching the revenue, entitled them to 
expect some concession on his part. They said that much had been 
done to gratify him, and that they must now do something to gratify 
the nation. ‘The House therefore, resolved itself into a Grand Com- 
mittee of Religion, in order to consider the best means of providing 
for the security of the ecclesiastical establishment. In that Com- 
mittee two resolutions were unanimously adopted. The first ex- 
pressed fervent attachment to the Church of England. The second 
called on the King to put in execution the penals laws against all per- 
sons who were not members of that Church.t 

The Whigs would doubtless have wished to see the Protestant dis- 
senters tolerated, and the Roman Catholics alone persecuted. But 
the Whigs were a small and a disheartened minority. They there- 
fore kept themselves as much as possible out of sight, dropped their 
party name, abstained from obtruding their peculiar opinions ona 
hostile audience, and steadily supported every proposition tending to 


" , May 23, May 25, 
*Burnet, 1, 639; Evelyn’s Diary, May 2, 1685; Barillon, —~—~ and ——— ra 


une 2, 
1685. The silence of the journals perplexed Mr. Fox: but it is explained by the 
circumstance that Seymour’s motion was not seconded. 
tJournals, May 22. Stat. Jac. Jac. II. i. 1. 
+ Journals, May 26,27. Sir J. Reresby’s Memoirs. é 


334 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


disturb the harmony which as yct subsisted between tlic Parliament 
and the Court. 

When the proceedings of the Committee of Religion were known 
at Whitehall, the King’s anger was great. Nor can we justly blame 
him for resenting the conduct of the Tories. If they were disposed 
to require the rigorous execution of the penal code, they clearly 
ought to have supported the Exclusion Bill. For to placea Papist 
on the throne, and then to insist on his persecuting to the death 
the teachers of that faith in which alone, on his principles, salvation 
could be found, was monstrous. In mitigating by a lenient adminis- 
tration the severity of the bloody laws of Elizabeth, the King violated 
no constitutional principle. He only exerted a power which has al- 
ways belonzed to the crown. Nay, he only did what was afterwards 
cone by a succession of sovercigns zealous for Protestantism, by 
William, by Anne, and by the princes of the House of Brunswick. 
Had he suffered Roman Catholic priests, whose lives he could save 
without infringing any law, to be hanged, drawn, and quartered for 
discharging what he considered as their first duty, he would have 
drawn on himself the hatred and contempt even of those to whose 
prejudices he had made so shameful a concession; and, had he con- 
tented himself with granting to the members of his own Church a 
practical toleration by a large exercise of his unquestioned prerogative 
of mercy, posterity would have unanimously applauded him. 

The Commons probably felt on reflection that they had acted ab- 
surdly. They were also disturbed by learning that the King, to 
whom they looked up with superstitious reverence, was greatly pro- 
voked. They made haste, therefore, to atone for their offence. In 
the House, they unanimously reversed the decision which, in the 
Committee, they had unanimously adopted, and passed a resolution 
importing that they relied with entire confidence on His Majesty’s 
gracious promise to protect that religion which was dearer to them 
than life itself.* 

Three days later the King informed the House that his brother had 
left some debts, and that the stores of the navy and ordnance were 
nearly exhausted. It was promptly resolved that new taxes should 
be imposed. The person cn whom devolved the task of devisin 
ways and means was Sir Dudley North, younger brother of the Lor 
Keeper. Dudley North was one of the ablest men of his time. He 
had early in life been sent to the Levant, and had there been long en- 
gaged in mercantile pursuits. Most men would, in such a situation, 
have allowed their faculties to rust. For at Smyrna and Constanti- 
nople there were few books and few intelligent companions. But the 
young factor had one of those vigorous understandings which are in- 
dependent of external aids. Jn his solitude he meditated deeply on 
the philosophy of trade, and thought out by degrees a complete and 


* Commons’ Journals, May 27, 1685. 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 335 


admirable theory, substantially the same with that which, a century 
later, was expounded by Adam Smith. After an exile of many 
years, Dudley North returned to England with a large fortune, and 
commenced business as a Turkey merchant in the City of London, 
His profound knowledge, both speculative and practical, of commer: 
cial matters, and the perspicuity and liveliness with which he 
explained his views, speedily introduced him to the notice of states- 
men. The government found in him at once an enlightened adviser 
and an unscrupulous slave. Jor with his rare mental endowments 
were joined lax principles and an unfeeling heart. When the Tory 
reaction was in full progress, he had consented to be made Sheriff 
for the express purpose cf assisting the vengeance of the court. His 
juries had never failed to find verdicts of Guilty; and, on a day of 
judicial butchery, carts, loaded with-the legs and arms of quartered 

higs, were, to the great discomposure of his lady, driven to his 
fine house in Basinghall Street for orders. His services had been 
rewarded with the honour of knighthood, with an Alderman’s gown, 
and with the office of Commissioner of the Customs. He had been 
brought into Parliament for Banbury, and though a new member, 
was the person on whom the Lord Treasurer chiefly relied for the 
conduct of financial business in the Lower House.* 

‘Though the Commons were unanimous in their resolution to grant 
a further supply to the crown, they were by no means agreed as to 
the sources from which that supply should be drawn. It was speed- 
ily determined that part of the sum which was required should be 
raised by laying an additional impost, for a term of eight years, on 
Wine and vinegar: but something more than this was needed. Sev- 
eral absurd schemes were suggested. Many country gentlemen were 
disposed to put a heavy tax on all new buildings in the capital. Such 
a tax, it was hoped, would check the growth of a city which had 
long been regarded with jealousy and aversion by the rural aristoc- 
racy. Dudley North’s pian was that additional duties should be 
imposed, for a term of eight years, on sugar and tobacco. <A great 
clamour was raised. Colonial merchants, grocers, sugar bakers, and 
tobacconists, petitioned the House and besieged the public offices. 
The people of Bristol, who were deeply interested in the trade with 
Virginia and Jamaica, sent up a deputation which was heard at the 
bar of the Commons. Rochester was for a moment staggered; but 
North’s ready wit and perfect knowledge of trade prevailed, both in 
the Treasury and in the Parliament, against all opposition. The old 
members were amazed at seeing a man who had not been a fortnight 
in the House, and whose life had been chiefly passed in foreign coun- 
tries, assume with confidence, and discharge with ability, all the 
functions of a Chancellor of the Exchequer.+ 


— 


* Roger North's Life of Sir Dudley North, Life of Lord Guildford, 166; Mr. 
MW Cullough’s Literature of Political Economy. 
* Life of Dudley North, 176; Lonsdale’s Memoirs; Van Citters, June 12-22, 1685, 


t 


/ 


ae 


a 


* 


336 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


~ 


His plan was adopted; and thus the Crown was in possession of a | 


clear income of about nineteen hundred thousand pounds, derived 
from England alone. Such an income was then more than sufficient 
for the support of the government in time of peace.* 

The Lords had, in the meantime, discussed several important ques- 
tions. The Tory party had always been strong among the peers. 
It included the whole bench of Bishops, and had been reinforced 
during the four years which had elapsed since the last dissolution, 
by several fresh creations. Of the new nobles, the most conspicuous 
were the Lord Treasurer Rochester, the Lord Keeper Guildford, the 


Lord Chief Justice Jeffreys, the Lord Godolphin, and the Lord ~ 


Churchill, who, after his return from Versailles, had been made a 
Baron of England. 

The peers early took into consideration the case of four members 
of their body who had been impeached in the late reign, but had 


never been brought to trial, and had, after a long confinement, been ~ 


admitted to bail by the Court of King’s Bench. Three of the noble- 
men who were thus under recognisances were Roman Catholics. 
The fourth was a Protestant of great note and influence, the Earl of 
Danby. Since he had fallen from power and had been accused of 
treason by the Commons, four Parliaments had been dissolved; but 
he had been neither acquitted nor condemned. In 1679 the Lords 
had considered, with reference to his situation, the question whether 
an impeachment was or was not terminated by a dissolution. They 
had resolved, after long debate and full examination of precedents, 
that the impeachment was still pending. 'That resolution they now 
rescinded. A few Whig nobles protested against this step, but to 
little purpose. The Commons silently acquiesced in the decision 
of the Upper House. Danby again took his seat among his peers, 
and became an active and powerful member of the Tory party.t+ 

The constitutional question on which the Lords thus, in the short 
space of six years, pronounced two diametrically opposite decisions, 
slept during more than a century, and was at length revived by the 
dissolution which took place during the long trial of Warren Hast- 
ings. It was then necessary to determine whether the rule laid down 
in 1679, or the opposite rule laid down in 1685, was to be accounted 
the law of the land. The point was long debated in both houses; 
and the best legal and parliamentary abilities which an age emi- 
nently fertile both in legal and in parliamentary ability could supply 
were employed in the discussion. The lawyers were not unequally 
divided. Thurlow, Kenyon, Scott, and Erskine maintained that 
the dissolution had put an end to the impeachment. The con- 


trary doctrine was held by Mansfield, Camden, Loughborough, and — 
Grant. But among those statesmen who grounded their arguments, ~ 


* Commons’ Journals, March 1, 1689. 
+ Lords’ Journals, March 18, 19, 1679, May 22, 1685. 


Ve 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. | 237 


not on precedents and technical analogies, but on deep and broad 
constitutional principles, there was little difference of opinion. Pitt 
and Grenville, as well as Burke and Fox, held that the impeach- 
ment was still pending. Both Houses by great majorities set aside 
the decision of 1685, and pronounced the decision of 1679 to be in 
conformity with the law of Parliament. 

Of the national crimes which had been committed during the 
panic excited by the fictions of Oates, the most signal had been the 
judicial murder of Stafford. The sentence of that unhappy noble- 
man was now regarded by all impartial persons as unjust. The 
principal witness for the prosecution had been convicted of a series 
of foul perjuries. It was the duty of the legislature, in such circum- 
stances, to do justice to the memory of a guiltless sufferer, and to 
efface an unmerited stain from a name long illustrious in our annals. 
A bill for reversing the attainder of Stafford was passed by the Up- 
per House, in spite of the murmurs of a few peers who were unwill- 
ing to admit that they had shed innocent blood. The Commons 
read the bill twice without a division, and ordered it to be committed. 
But, on the day appointed for the committee, arrived news that a 


_ formidable rebellion had broken out in the West of England. It 


was consequently necessary to postpone much important business. 
The amends due to the memory of Stafford were deferred, as was 
supposed, only fora short time. But the misgovernment of James 
in a few months completely turned the tide of public feelinz. Dur- 
ing several generations the Roman Catholics were in no coudition to 
demand reparation for injustice, and accounted themselves happy if 
they were permitted to live unmolested in obscurity and silence. At 
length, in the reign of King George the Fourth, more than a hun- 
dred and forty years after the day on which the blood of Stafford 
was shed on Tower Hill, the tardy expiation was accomplished. A 
law annulling the attainder and restoring the injured family to its 
ancient dignities was presented to Parliament by the ministers of the 
crown, was eagerly welcomed by public men of all parties, and was 
passed without one dissentient voice.* 

It is now necessary that I should trace the origin and progress of 


_ that rebellion by which the deliberations of the Houses were sud- 


denly interrupted. 


* Stat. 5 Geo. IV. c. 46. 


CHAPTER VY. 


TowaAnrpns the close of the reign of Charles the Second, some Whigs 
who had been deeply implicated in the plot so fatal to their party, 
and who knew themselves to be marked out for destruction, had 
sought an asylum in the Low Countries. 

These refugees were in general men of fiery temper and weak 
judgment. They were also under the influence of that peculiar illu- 
sion which seems to belong to their situation. A politician driven 
into banishment by a hostile faction generally sees the society which 
he has quitted through a false medium. Every object is distorted 
and discoloured by his regrets, his longings, and his resentments. 
Every little discontent appears to him to portend a revolution. 
Every riot is a rebellion. He cannot be convinced that his country 
does not pine for him as much as he pines for his country.* He im- 
agines that all his old associates, who still dwell at their homes and 
enjoy their estates, are tormented by the same feelings which make 
life a burden to himself. The longer his expatriation, the greater 
does this hallucination become. The lapse of time, which cools the 
ardour of the friends whom he has left behind, inflames his. Every 
month his impatience to revisit his native land increases; and every 
month his native land remembers and misses him less. This delu- 
sion becomes almost a madness when many exiles who suffer in the 
same cause herd together in a foreign country. Their chief employ- 
ment is to talk of what they once were, and of what they may yet 
be, to goad each other into animosity against the common enemy, to 
feed each other with extravagant hopes of victory and revenge. Thus 
they become ripe for enterprises which would at once be pronounced | 
hopeless by any man whose passions had not deprived him of the 
power of calculating chances. 

In this mood were many of the outlaws who had assembled on the 
Continent. The correspondence which they kept up with England — 
was, for the most part, such as tended to excite their feelings and to” 
mislead their judgment. Their information concerning the temper 
of the public mind was chiefly derived from the worst members of 
the Whig party, from men who were plotters and libellers by pro- 
fession, who were pursued by the officers of justice, who were forced 
to skulk in disguise through back streets, and who sometimes lay hid 
for weeks in cocklofts and cellars. The statesmen who had for-— 
merly been the ornaments of the Country Party, the statesmen who 
afterwards guided the councils of the Convention, would have given 
advice very different from that which was given by such men as John 
Wildman and Henry Danvers. 


History OF ENGLAND. 308 


Wildman had served forty years before in the parliamentary army, 
but had been more distinguished there as an agitator than as a sol- 
dier, and had early quitted the profession of arms for pursuits better 
suited to his temper. His hatred of monarchy had induced him to 
engage in a long series of conspiracies, first against the Protector, and 
then against the Stuarts. But with Wildman’s fanaticism was joined 
a tender care for his own safety. He had a wonderful skill in graz- 
ing the edge of treason. No man understood better how to instigate 
others to desperate enterprises by words which, when repeated to a 
jury, might seem innocent, or, at worst, ambiguous. Such was his 

cunning that, though always plotting, though always known to be 
plotting, and though long malignantly watched by a vindictive gov- 
ernment, he eluded every danger, and died in his bed, after having 
seen two generations of his accomplices die on the gallows.* Danvers 
Was a man of the same class, hotheaded, but fainthearted, constantly 
urged to the brink of danger by enthusiasm, and constantly stopped 
on that brink by cowardice. He had considerable influence among 
a portion of the Baptists, had written largely in defence of their pe- 
culiar opinions, and had drawn down on himself the severe censure 
of the most respectable Puritans by attempting to palliate the crimes 
of Matthias and John of Leyden. It is probable that, had he pos- 
sessed a little courage, he would have trodden in the footsteps of the 
wretches whom he defended. He was, at this time, concealing him- 
self from the officers of justice; for warrants were out against him on 
account Of a grossly calumnious paper of which the government had 
discovered him to be the author.+ 

It is easy to imagine what kind of intelligence and counsel men, 
such as have been described, were likely to send to the outlaws in 
the Netherlands. Of the general character of those outlaws an esti- 
mate may be formed from a few samples. 

One of the most conspicuous among them was John Ayloffe, a 
lawyer connected by affinity with the Hydes, and through the Hydes, 
with James. Ayloffe had early made himself remarkable by offering 
a whimsical insult to the government. Ata time when the ascend- 
ency of the court of Versailles had excited general uneasiness, he had 
contrived to put a wooden shoe, the established type, among the Eng- 
lish, of French tyranny, into the chair of the House of Commons. 
He had subsequently been concerned in the Whig plot; but there is 
no reason to believe that he was a party to the design of assassinating 
the royal brothers. He was a man of parts and courage; but his 


* Clarendon’s History of the Rebellion, book xiv.; Burnet’s Own Times, i. 546, 
625; Wade’s and Ireton’s Narratives, Lansdowne MS. 1152; West’s information 
in the Appendix to Sprat’s True Account. 

¥ London Gazette, January 4, 1684-5; Ferguson MS. in Eachard’s History, iii. 

; Grey’s Narratives: Sprat’s True Account; Danvers’s Treatise on Baptism; 


Danvers’s Innocency and Truth vindicated; Crosby’s History of the English 
Baptists. 


cs Darl 


310 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


moral character did not stand high. The Puritan divines whispered 
that he was a careless Gallio or something worse, and that, whatever 
zeal he might profess for civil liberty, the Saints would do well to 
avoid all connection with him.* Bs 
athaniel Wade was, like Ayloffe, a lawyer. He had long resided 
at Bristol, and had been celebrated in his own neighbourhood as a 
vehement republican. At one time he had formed a project of emi- 
grating to New Jersey, where he expected to find institutions better 
suited to his taste than those of England. His activity in election- 
eering had introduced him to the notice of some Whig nobles. They 
had emploved him professionally, and had, at length, admitted him 
to their most secret counsels. He had been deeply concerned in the 
scheme of insurrection, and had undertaken to head a rising in his 
own city. He had also been privy to the more odious plot against 
the lives of Charles and James. But he always declared that, though 
privy to it, he had abhorred it, and had attempted to dissuade his 
associates from carrying their design into effect. For a man bred to 
civil pursuits, Wade seems to have had, in an unusual degree, that 
sort of ability and that sort of nerve which make a good soldier, 
Unhappily his principles and his courage proved to be not of suffi- 
cient force to support him when the fight.was over, and when in a 
prison, he had to choose between death and infamy.t+ 
Another fugitive was Richard Goodenough, who had formerly been 
Under Sheriff of London. On this man his party had long relied for 
services of no honorable kind, and especially for the selection of jury- 
men not likely to be troubled with scruples in political cases. He 
had been deeply concerned in those dark and atrocious parts of the 
Whig plot which had been carefully concealed from the most respect- 
able Whigs. Nor is it possible to plead, in extenuation of his guilt, 
that he was misled by inordinate zeal for the public good. For it 
will be seen that after having disgraced a noble cause by his crimes, 
he betrayed it in order to escape from his well merited punishment. 
Very different was the character of Richard Rumbold. He had 


held a commission in Cromwell’s own regiment, had guarded the 


scaffold before the Banqueting House on the day of the great execu- 
tion, had fought at Dunbar and Worcester, and had always shown in 
the highest degree the qualities which distinguished the invincible 
army in which he served, courage of the truest temper, fiery enthu- 


* Sprat’s True Account; Burnet, |. 634; Wade's Confession, Harl, MS. 6845. 

Lord Howard of Escrick accused Ayloffe of proposing to assassinate the Duke 
of York; but Lord Howard was an abject liar; and this story was not part of 
his original confession, but was added afterwards by way of supplement, and 
therefore deserves no credit whatever. 

+ Wade’s Confession, Harl, MS, 6845; Lansdowne MS. 1152; Holloway’s nar- 
rative inthe Appendix to Sprat’s True Aceount. Wade owned that Holloway 
had told nothing but truth, i Rane: 

t Sprat’s True Account and Appendix, passim, 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 34] 


| siasm, both political and religious, and with that enthusiasm, all the 


power of selfgovernment which is characteristic of men trained in 
well disciplined camps to command and to obey. When the Republi 
can troops were disbanded, Rumbold became a maltster, and carried 
on his trade near Hoddesdon, in that building from which the Rye 
House plot derives its name. It had been suggested, though not ab- 
solutely determined, in the conferences of the most violent and un- 
scrupulous of the malcontents, that armed men should be stationed in 
the Rye House to attack the Guards who were to escort Charles and 
James from Newmarket to London. In these conferences Rumbold 
had borne a part from which he would have shrunk with horror, if 
his clear understanding had not been overclouded, and his manly 
heart corrupted, by party spirit.* 

A more important exile was Ford Grey, Lord Grey of Wark. He 
had been a zealous Exclusionist, had concurred in the design of insur- 
rection, and had been committed to the Tower; but had succeeded in 
making his keepers drunk, and in effecting his escape to the Conti- 
nent. His parliamentary abilities were great, and his manners pleas- 
ing: but his life had been sullied by a great domestic crime. His 
wife was a daughter of the noble house of Berkeley. Her sister, 
the Lady Henrietta Berkeley, was allowed to associate and corre- 
spond with him as with a brother by blood. A fatal attachment 
Sprangup. The high spirit and strong passions of Lady Henrietta 
broke through all restraints of virtue and decorum. A scandalous 
clopement disclosed to the whole kingdom the shame of two illustri- 


ous families. Grey and some of the agents who had served him ina 
his amour were brought to trial on a charge of conspiracy. A scene 


unparalleled in our legal history was exhibited in the Court of King’s 
Bench. The seducer appeared with dauntless front, accompanied by 
his paramour. Nor did the great Whig lords flinch from their friend’s 
side even on that extremity. Those whom he had wronged stood 
over against him, and were moved to transports of rage by the sight 


“ofhim. The old Earl of Berkeley poured forth reproaches and curses 


ry 


onthe wretched Henrietta. The Countess gave evidence broken by 
many sobs, and at length fell down in a swoon. The jury found a 


verdict of Guilty. When the court rose Lord Berkeley called on alk 


his friends to help him to seize his daughter. The partisans of Grey 
rallied round her. Swords were drawn on both sides; a skirmish 
took place in Westminster Hall; and it was with difficulty that the 
Judges and tipstaves parted the combatants. In our time such a trial 
would be fatal to the character of a public man; but in that age the 
standard of morality among the great was low, and party spirit was 
80 violent, that Grey still continued to have considerable influence, 


* Sprat’s True Account and Appendix; Proceedings against Rumbold in the 
ae 3 State Trials; Burnet’s Own Times, i, 63; Appendix to Fox’s His- 
‘e ’ oO. ° 


-~ 


342 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


though the Puritans, who formed a strong section of the Whig party, 
looked somewhat coldly on him.* 

Oue part of the character, or rather, it may be, of the fortune, of 
Grey deserves notice. It was admitted that everywhere, except on 
the field of battle, he showed a high degree of courage. More “han 
once, in embarrassing circumstances, when his life and liberty were 
at stake, the dignity of his deportment and his perfect command of 
all his faculties extorted praise from those who neither loved nor ef~- 
teemed him. But as a soldier he incurred, less perhaps by his faul 
than by mischance, the degrading imputation of personal cowardice. 

In this respect he differed widely from his friend the Duke of 
Monmouth. Ardent and intrepid on the field of battle, Monmouth 
was everywhere else effeminate and irresolute. The accident of his 
birth, his personal courage, and his superficial graces, had placed him 
in a post for which he was altogether unfitted. After witnessing the 
ruin of the party of which he had been the nominal head, he had re- 
tired to Holland. The Prince and Princess of Orange had now 
ceased to regard him asa rival. They received him most hospitably; 
for they hoped that, by treating him with kindness, they should es- 
tablish a claim to the gratitude of his father. They knew that pater- 
nal affection was not yet wearied out, that letters and supplies of 
money still came secretly from Whitehall to Monmouth’s retreat, and 
that Charles frowned on those who sought to pay their court to him 
by speaking ill of his banished son. The Duke had been encouraged 
to expect that, in a very short time, if he gave no new cause of dis- 
pleasure, he would be recalled to his native land, and restored to all 
his high honours and commands. Animated by such expectations 
he had been the life of the Hague during the late winter. He had 
been the most conspicuous figure ata succession of balls in that 
splendid Orange Hall, which blazes on every side with the most 
ostentatious colouring of Joideens and Hondthorst.+ He had taught 
the English country dance to the Dutch ladies, and had in his turn 
learned from them to skate on the canals. The Princess had accom- 
panied him in his expeditions on the ice; and the figure which she 
made there, poised on one leg, and clad in petticoats shorter than are 
generally worn by ladies so strictly decorous, had caused some won- 
der and mirth to the foreign ministers. The sullen gravity which 
had been characteristic of the Stadtholder’s court seemed to have van- 
ished before the influence of the fascinating Englishman. Even the 
stern and pensive William relaxed into good hnmour when his bril- 
liant guest appeared. t 


as eb By narrative; his trial in the Collection of State Trials; Sprat’s True 
ecount. 

+ In the Pepysian Collection is a print representing one of the balls which 
about this time William and Mary gave in the Oranje Zaal. 

¢ Avaux Neg. January 25, 1685. Letter from Jamesto the Princess of Orange 
dated January 1685, among Birch’s Extracts in the British Museum, : 


ot 


. 


. 
= 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 343 


Monmouth meanwhile carefully avoided all that could give offence 
in the quarter to which he looked for protection. He saw little of 
any Whigs, and nothing of those violent men who had been concern- 
ed in the worst part of the Whig plot. He was therefore loudly 
accused, by his old associates, of fickleness and ingratitude.* 

By none of the exiles was this accusation urged with more vehe- 
mence and bitterness than by Robert Ferguson, the Judas of Dry- 
den’s great satire. Ferguson was by birth a Scot; but England had 
long been his residence. At the time of the Restoration, indeed, he 
had held a living in Kent. He had been bred a Presbyterian; but the 
Presbyterians had cast him out, and he had become an Independent. 
He had been master of an academy which the Dissenters had set up 
at Islington as a rival to Westminster School and the Charter House, 
and he had preached to large congregations at a mecting house in 
Moorfields. He had also published some theological treatises which 
may still be found in the dusty recesses of a few old libraries; but, 
though texts of Scripture were always on his lips, those who had 
pecuniary transactions with him soon found him to be a mere swin- 
dler. 

At length he turned his attention almost entirely from theology to 
the worst part of politics. He belonged to the class whose office it is 
to render in troubled times to exasperated parties those services from 
which honest men shrink in disgust and prudent men in fear, the class 
of fanatical knaves. Violent, malignant, regardless of truth, insensi- 
ble to shame, insatiable of notoriety, delighting in intrigue, in tumult, 
in mischief for its own sake, he toiled during many years in the dark- 
est mines of faction. He lived among libellers and false witnesses. 
He was the keeper of a secret purse from which agents too vile to be 
acknowledged received hire, and the director of a secret press whence 
pamphlets, bearing no name, were daily issued. He boasted that he 
had contrived to scatter lampoons about the terrace of Windsor, and 
even to lay them under the royal pillow. In this way of life he was 
put to many shifts, was forced to assume many names, and at one time 
had four different lodgings in different corners of London. He was 
deeply engaged in the Rye House plot. There is, indeed, reason to 
believe that he was the original author of those sanguinary schemes 
which brought so much discredit on the whole Whig party. When 
the conspiracy was detected and his associates were in dismay, he 

bade them farewell with a laugh, and told them that they were novi- 
ces, that he had been used to flight, concealment and disguise, and 
that he should never leave off plotting while he lived. He escaped to 
the Continent. But it seemed that even on the Continent he was not 
secure. The English envoys at foreign courts were directed to be on 
the watch for him. The French government offered a reward of five 
hundred pistoles to any one who would seize him. Nor was it easy 


* Grey’s Narrative; Wade’s Confession, Lansdowne MS. 1152 


344 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


for him to escape notice; for his broad Scotch accent, his tall and 
lean figure, his lantern jaws, the gleam of his sharp eyes which were 
always overhung by his wig, his cheeks inflamed by an eruption; his 
shoulders deformed by a stoop, and his gait distinguished from that 
of other men by a peculiar shuffle, made him remarkable wherever he 
appeared. But, though he was, as it seemed, pursued with peculiar 
animosity, it was whispered that this animosity was feigned, and that 
the ofticers of justice had secret orders not tosee him. That he was 
really a bitter malecontent can scarcely be doubted. But there is a 
strong reason to believe that he provided for his own safety by pre- 
tending at Whitehall to be a spy on the Whigs, and by furnishing the 
government with just so much information as sufficed to keep up his 
credit. This hypothesis furnishes a simple explanation of what seem- 
ed to his associates to be his unnatural recklessness and audacity. 
Being himself out of danger, he always gave his vote for the most 
violent and perilous course, and. sneered very complacently at the 
pusillanimity of men who, not having taken the infamous precautions 
on which he relied, were disposed to think twice before they placed 
life, and objects dearer than life, on a single hazard.* 

As soon as he was in the Low Countries he began to form new pro- 
jects against the English government, and found among his fellow 
emigrants men ready to listen to his evil counsels. Monmouth, how- 
ever, stood obstinately aloof; and, without the help of Monmouth’s 
immense popularity, it was impossible to effect anything. Yet such 
was the impatience and rashness of the exiles that they tried to find 
another leader. They sent an embassy to that solitary retreat on the 
shores of Lake Leman where Edmund Ludlow, once conspicuous 
among the chiefs of the parliamentary army and among the members 
of the High Court of Justice, had, during many years, hidden himself 
from the vengeance of the restored Stuarts. The stern old regicide, 
however, refused to quit his hermitage. His work, he said, was done. 
If England was still to be saved, she must be saved by younger men. + 

The unexpected demise of the crown changed the whole aspect of 
affairs, Any hope which the proscribed Whigs might have cherished 
of returning peaceably to their native land was extinguished by the 
death of a careless and goodnatured prince, and by the accession of a 

rince obstinate in all things, and especially obstinate in revenge. 

erguson was in hiselement. Destitute of the talents both of a writer 
and of a statesman, he had in a high degree the unenviable qualifica- 
tions of a tempter; and now, with the malevolent activity and dex- 
terity of an evil spirit, he ran from outlaw to outlaw, chattered in 
gvery ear, and stirred up in every bosom savage animosities and wild 

esires, 


* Burnet, i. 542; Wood, Ath. Ox. under the name of Owen; Absalom and Ach- 

tophel, part ii.; Eachard. iii. 682, 697; Sprat’s True Account, passim; Lond. Gaz, 

Aug. 6, 1683; Nonconformist’s Memorial; North’s Examen, 399, 
+ Wade’s Confession, Harl. MS. 6845, 


ge 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 345 


He no longer despaired of being able to seduce Monmouth. The 
situation of that unhappy young man was completely changed. 
While he was dancing and skating at the Hague, and expecting every 
day a summons to London, he was overwhelmed with misery by the 
tidings of his father’s death and of his uncle’s accession. During the 
night which followed the arrival of the news, those who lodged near 
him could distinctly hear his sobs and his piercing cries. He quitted 
the Hague the next day, having solemnly pledged his word both to 
the Prince and to the Princess of Orange not to attempt anything 
against the government of England, and having been supplied by 
them witl. money to meet immediate demands.* 

The prospect which lay before Monmouth was not a bright one. 
There was no probability that he would be recalled from banishment. 
On the Continent his life could no longer be passed amidst the splen- 
dour and festivity of a court. His cousins at the Hague seem to have 
really regarded him with kindness; but they could no longer counte- 
nance him openly without serious risk of producing arupture between 
England and Holland. William offered a kind and judicious sug- 

estion. The war which was then raging in Hungary, between the 

mperor and the Turks, was watched by all Europe with interest al- 
most as great as that which the Crusades had excited five hundred 
years earlier. Many gallant gentlemen, both Protestant and Catho- 
lic, were fighting as volunteers in the common cause of Christendom. 
The Prince advised Monmouth to repair to the Imperial camp, and 
assured him that, if he would do so, he should not want the means of 
making an appearance befitting an English noblemen.{ This counsel 
was excellent: but the Duke could not make up his mind. He retired 
to Brussels accompanied by Henrietta Wentworth, Baroness Went: 
worth of Nettlestede, a damsel of high rank and ample fortune, who 
loved him passionately, who had sacrificed for his sake her maiden 
honour and the hope of a splendid alliance, who had followed him 
into exile, and whom he believed to be his wife in the sight of heaven. 
Under the soothing influence of female friendship, his lacera‘ed mind 
healed fast. He seemed to have found happiness in obscurity and re- 
pose, and to have forgotten that he had been the ornament of a splen- 
did court and the head of a great party, that he had commanded 
armies, and that he had aspired to a throne. 

But he was not suffered to remain quiet. Ferguson employed all 
his powers of temptation Grey, who knew not where to turn for a 
pistole, and was ready for any undertaking, however desperate, lent 
his aid. No art was spared which could draw Monmouth from re- 
treat. To the first invitations which he received from his old asso- 
ciates he returned unfavourable answers. He pronounced the diffi- 
culties of a descent on England insuperable, protested that he was 


2) = —- 


*, Avaux Neg. Feb. 20, 22, 1685; Monmouth’s letter to James from Ringwood. 
+ Boyer’s History of King William the Third, 2d edition, 1703, vol. i. 160. 


346 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


sick of publiclife, and begged to be left in the enjoyment of his newly 
found happiness. But he was little in the habit of resisting skilful 
and urgent importunity. It is said, too, that he was induced to quit 
his retirement by the same powerful influence which had made that 
retirement delightful. Lady Wentworth wished to see him a King. 
Her rents, her diamonds, her credit were put at his disposal. Mon- 
mouth’s judgment was not convinced; but he had not the firmness t 
resist such solicitations.* 

By the English exiles he was joyfully welcomed, and unanimously 
acknowledged as their head. But there was another class of emigrants 
who were not disposed to recognise his supremacy. Misgovernment, 
such as had never been known in the southern part of our island, had 
driven from Scotland to the Continent many fugitives, the intemper- 
ance of whose political and religious zeal was proportioned to the 
oppression which they had undergone. These men were not willing 
to follow :.n English leader. Even in destitution and exile they re- 
tained their punctilious national pride, and would consent that their 
country should be, in their persons, degraded into a province. ‘They 
had a captain of their own, Archibald, ninth Earl of Argyle, who, as 
chief of the great tribe of Campbell, was known among the population 
of the Highlands by the proud name of Mac Callum More. His father, 
the Marquess of Argyle, had been the head of the Scotch Covenanters, 
had greatly contributed to the ruin of Charles the First and was not 
thought by the Royalists to have atoned for this offence by consent- 
ing to bestow the empty title of King, and a state prison in a palace, 
on Charles the second. After the return of the royal family the Mar- 
quess was put todeath. His marquisate became extinct; but his son 
was permitted to inherit the ancient earldom, and was still among the 
greatest if not the greatest, of the nobles of Scotland. The Earl's 
conduct during the twenty years which followed the Restoration had 
been, as he afterwards thought, criminally moderate. He had, on 
some occasions, opposed the administration which afflicted his 
country; but his opposition had been languid and cautious. His 
compliances in ecclesiastical matters had given scandal to rigid Presby- 
terians: and so far had he been from showing any inclination to re- 
sistance that, when the Covenanters had been persecuted into insur- 
rection, he had brought into the field a large body of his dependents 
to support the government. 

Such had been his political course until the Duke of York came 


* Welwood’s Memoirs, App. xv.; Burnet, i. 630, Grey told a somewhat differ- 
ent story; but he told it tosave his life. The Spanish ambassador at the English 
court, Don Pedro de Ronquillo, in a letter to the governor of the Low Countries 
written about this time, sneers at Monmouth for living on the bounty of a fond 
woman, and hints a very unfounded suspicion that the Duke’s passion was alto- 

ether interested. ‘ Hallandose hoy tan falto de medios que ha menester tras- 
ormarse en Amor cca Miledi en vista de la ecesidad de poder subsistir.””—Ron- 


; Mar. 30, 
quillo to Grana, “4, 9, 1685. 


es 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 347 


down to Edinburgh armed with the whole regal authority. The de- 
spotic viceroy soon found that he could not expect entire support 
from Argyle. Since the most powerful chief in the kingdom could 
not be gained, it was thought necessary that he should be destroyed. 
On grounds so frivolous that even the spirit of party and the spirit of 
chicane were ashamed of them, he was brought to trial for treason, 
convicted, and sentenced to death. The partisans of the Stuarts 
afterwards asserted that it was never meant to carry this sentence in- 
to effect, and that the only object of the prosecution was to frighten 
him into ceding his extensive jurisdiction in the Highlands. Whether 
James designed, as his enemiessuspected, to commit murder, or only, 
as his friends affirmed, to commit extortion by threatening to commit 
murder, cannot now be ascertained. ‘‘I know nothing of the Scotch 
law,” said Halifax to King Charles; ‘‘ but this I know, that we should 
not hang adog here on the grounds on which my Lord Argyle has 
been sentenced.” * 

Argyle escaped in disguise to England, and thence passed over to 
Friesland. In that secluded province his father had bought a small 
estate, as a place of refuge for the family in civil troubles. It was 
said, among the Scots that this purchase had been made in con- 
sequence of the predictions of a Celtic seer, to whom it had been re- 
vealed that Mac Callum More would one day be driven forth from 
the ancient mansion of his race at Inverary.+ But it is probable that 
the politic Marquess had been warned rather by the signs of the times 
than by the visions of any prophet. In Friesland Ear] Archibald re- 
sided during some time so quietly that it was not generally known 
whither he had fled. From his retreat he carried on a correspondence 
with his friends in Great Britain, was a party to the Whig conspiracy, 
and concerted with the chiefs of that conspiracy a plan for invading 
Scotland.| Thisplan had been dropped upon the detection of the 
Rye House plot, but became again the subject of his thoughts after 
the demise of the crown. 

He had, during his residence on the Continent, reflected much more 
deeply on religious questions than in the preceding years of his life. 
In one respect the effect of these reflections on his mind had been 
pernicious. His partiality for the synodical form of church govern- 
ment now amounted to bigotry. When he remembered how long he 
had conformed to the established worship, he was overwhelmed with 
Shame and remorse, and showed too many signs of a disposition to 
atone for his defection by violence and intolerance. He had, how- 
ever, in no long time, an opportunity of proving that the fear and love 


* Proceedings against Argyle in the Collection of State Trials; Burnet, i. 521; 
A True and Plain Account of the Discoveries made in Scotland,1684; The Scotch 
Mist Cleared; Sir George Mackenzie’s Vindication; Lord Fountainhall’s 
Chronological Notes. . 

+ Information of Robert Smith in the Appendix to Sprat’s True Account. 

+ True and Plain Account of the Discoveries made in Scotland. 


348 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


of a higher Power had nerved him for the most formidable conflicts 
by which human nature can be tried. 

To his companions in adversity his assistance was of the highest 
moment. Though proscribed and a fugitive, he was still, in some 
sense, the most powerful subject in the British dominions, In wealth, 
even before his attainder, he was probably inferior, not only to the 
great English nobles, but to some of the opulent esquires of Kent and 
Norfolk. But his patriarchal authority, an authority which no wealth 
could give and which no attainder could take away, made him, as a 
leader of an insurrection, truly formidable. No southern lord could 
feel any confidence that, if he ventured to resist the government, even 
his own gamekeepers and huntsmen would stand by him. An Earl 
of Bedford, an Earl of Devonshire, could not engage to bring ten 
men into the field. Mac Callum More, penniless and deprived of his 
earldom, might at any moment, raise a serious civil war. He had only 
to show himself on the coast of Lorn; and an army would, in a few 
days, gather round him. The force which, in favourable circum- 
stances, he could bring into the field, amounted to five thousand fight- 
ing men, devoted to his service, accustomed to the use of target and 
broadsword, not afraid to encounter regular troops even in the open 
plain, and perhaps superior to regular troops in the qualifications re- 
quisite for the defence of wild mountain passes, hidden in mist, and 
torn by headlong torrents. Whatsuch a force, well directed, could 
effect, even against veteran regiments and skilful commanders, was 
proved, a few years later, at Killiecrankie. 

But, strong as was the claim of Argyle to the confidence of the 
exiled Scots, there was a faction among them which regarded him 
with no friendly feeling, and which wished to make use of his name 
and influence, without entrustiag to him any real power. The chicf 
of this faction was a lowland gentleman, who had been implicated in 
the Whig plot, and had with difficulty eluded the vengeance of the 
court, Sir Patrick Hume, of Polwarth, in Berwickshire. - Great doubt 
has been thrown on his integrity, but without sufficient reason. It 
must, however, be admitted that he injured his cause by perverseness 
as much as he could have done by treachery. He was a man incapa- 
ble alike of leading and of following, conceited, captious, and wrong- 
headed, an endless talker, a sluggard in action against the enemy and 
active only against his own allies. With Hume was closely con- 
nected another Scottish exile of great note, who had many of the 
same fauits, Sir John Cochrane, second son of the Earl of Dundonald. 

A far higher character belonged to Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun, a 
man distinguished by learning and eloquence, distinguished also by 
courage, disinterestedness, and public spirit, but of an irritable and 
impracticable temper. Like many of his most illustrious contem- 
-poraries, Milton for example, Harrington, Marvel, and Sidney, 
Fletcher had, from the misgovernment of several successive princes, 
conceived a strong aversion to hereditary monarchy. Yet he was no 


a 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 349 


democrat. He was the head of an ancient Norman house, and was 
proud of his descent. He wasa fine speaker and a fine writer, and 
was proud of his intellectual superiority. Both in his character of 
gentleman, and in his character of scholar, he looked down with dis- 
dain on the common people, and was so little disposed to entrust them 
with political power that he thought them unfit even to enjoy personal 
freedom. It is acurious circumstance that this man, the most honest, 
fearless, and uncompromising republican of his time, should have 
been the author of a plan for reducing a large part of the working 
classes of Scotland to slavery. He bore, in truth, a lively resemblance 
to those Roman Senators who, while they hated the name of King, 
guarded the privileges of their order with inflexible pride against the 
encroachment of the multitude, and gaverned their bondsmen and 
bondwomen by means of the stocks and the scourge. 

Amsterdam was the place where the leading emigrants, Scotch and 
English, assembled. Argyle repaired thither from Friesland, Mon- 
mouth from Brabant. It soon appeared that the fugitives had scarcely 
anything in common except hatred of James and impatience to return 
from banishment. The Scots were jealous of the English, the Eng- 
lish of the Scots. Monmouth’s high pretensions were offensive to 
Argyle, who, proud of ancient nobility and of a legitimate descent 
from kings, was by no means inclined to do homage to the offspring 
of a vagrant and ignoble love. But of all the dissensions by which 
the little band of outlaws was distracted the most serious was that 
which arose between Argvle and. a portion of his own followers. 
Some of the Scottish exiles had, in a long course of opposition to 
tyranny, been excited into a morbid state of understanding and tem- 
per, which made the most just and necessary restraint insupportable 
to them. They knew that without Argyle they could do nothing. 
They ought to have known that, unless they wished to run headlong 
to ruin, they must either repose full confidence in their leader, or re- 
linquish all thoughts of military enterprise. Experience has fully 
proved that in war every operation, from the greatest to the smallest, 
Ought to be under the absolute direction of one mind, and that 
every subordinate agent, in his degree, ought to obey implicitly, 
strenuously, and with the show of cheerfulness, orders which he dis- 
approves, or of which the reasons are kept secret from him. Repre- 
Sentative assemblies, public discussions, and all other checks by 
which, in civil affairs, rulers are restrained from abusing power, are 
out of place in a camp. Machiavel justly imputed many of the 
disasters of Venice and Florence to the jealousy which led those re- 
publics to interfere with every act of their generals.* The Dutch 
practice of sending to an army deputies, without whose consent no 
great blow could be struck, was almost equally pernicious. It is 
undoubtedly by no means certain that a captain, who has been 


* Discorsi sopra la prima Deca di Tito Livio, lib. ii. cap. 33. 
M. E. i.—12 


’ 
> 


a 


350 | HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


entrusted with dictatorial power in the hour of peril, will quietly 
surrender that power in the hour of triumph; and this is one of the 
many considerations which ought to make men hesitate long before 
they resolve to vindicate public liberty by the sword. But, if they 
determine to try the chance of war, they will, if they are wise, 
entrust to their chief that plenary authority without which war can- 
not be well conducted. It is possible that, if they give him that au- 
thority, he may turn out.a Cromwell or a Napoleon. But it is almost 
certain that, if they withhold from him that authority, their enter- 
prises will end like the enterprise of Argyle. 

Some of the Scottish emigrants, heated with republican enthusiasm, 
and utterly destitute of the skill necessary to the conduct of great 
affairs, employed all their industry and ingenuity, not in collecting 
means for the attack which they were about to make on a formidable 
enemy, but in devising restraints on their leader’s power and securi- 
ties against his ambition. Tho selfcomplacent stupidity with which 
they insisted on organising an army as if they had been cae 
a commonwealth would be incredible if it had not been frankly an 
even boastfully recorded by one of themselves.* . 

At length all differences were compromised. It was determined 
that an attempt should be forthwith made on the western coast of 
Scotland, and that it should be promptly followed by a descent on 
England. 

Argyle was to hold the nominal command in Scotland: but he was 
placed under the control of a Committee which reserved to itself all 
the most important parts of the military administration. This com- 
mittee was empowered to determine where the expedition should 
land, to appoint officers, to superintend the levying of troops, to dole 
out provisions and ammunition. All that was left to the general was ~ 
to direct the evolutions of the army in the field, and he was forced 
to promise that even in the field, except in the case of a surprise, he 
would do nothing without the assent of a council of war. 

Monmouth was to command in England. His soft mind had, as 
usual, taken an impress from the society which surrounded him. 
Ambitious hopes, which had seemed to be extinguished, revived in 
his bosom. He remembered the affection with which he had been 
constantly greeted by the common people in town and country, and 
expected that they would now rise by hundreds of thousands to wel- 
come him. -He remembered the good will which the soldiers had 
always borne him, and flattered himself that they would come over 
to him by regiments. Encouraging messages reached him in quick 
succession from London. He was assured that the violence and in- 
justice with which the elections had been carried on had driven the 
nation mad, that the prudence of the leading Whigs had with diffi- 
culty prevented a sanguinary outbreak on the day of the coronation, 


* See Sir Patrick Hume’s Narrative, passim. 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 351 


and that all the great Lords who had supported the Exclusion Bill 
were impatient to rally around him. Wildman, who loved to talk 
treason in parables, sent to say that the Earl of Richmond, just two 
hundred years before, had landed in England with a handful of men, 
and had a few days later been crowned, on the field of Bosworth, 
with the diadem taken from the head of Richard. Danvers under- 
took to raise the City. The Duke was deceived into the belief that, 
as soon as he set up his standard, Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, 
Hampshire, Cheshire would rise in arms.* He consequently became 
eager for the enterprise from which a few weeks before he had 
shrunk. His countrymen did not impose on him restrictions so 
elaborately absurd as those which the Scotch emigrants had devised. 
All that was required of him was to promise that he would not as- 
sume the regal title till his pretensions has been submitted to the 
judgment of a free Parliament. 

It was determined that two Englishmen, Ayloffe and Rumbold, 
should accompany Argyle to Scotland, and that Fletcher should go 
with Monmouth to England. Fletcher, from the beginning, had 
augured ill of the enterprise: but his chivalrous spirit would not suf- 
fer him to decline a risk which his friends seemed eager to en- 

counter. When Grey repeated with approbation what Wildman had 
said about Richmond and Richard, the well read and thoughtful 
Scot justly remarkcd that there was a great difference between the 
fifteenth century and the seventeenth. Richmond was assured of 
the support of barons, each of whom could bring an army of feudal 
retainers into the field; and Richard had not one regiment of regular 
soldiers. * 
The exiles were able to raise, partly from their own resources and 
_ partly from the contributions of well wishers in Holland, a sum suffi- 
cient for the two expeditions. Very little was obtained from London, 
Six thousand pounds had been expected thence. But instead of 
the money came excuses from Wildman, which ought to have 
opened the eyes of all who were not wilfully blind. The Duke made 
up the deficiency by pawning his own jewels and those of Lady 
Wentworth. Arms, ammunition, and provisions were bought, and 
several ships which lay at Amsterdam were freighted.+ 
_ It is remarkable that the most illustrious and the most grossly in- 
jured man among the British exiles stood far aloof from these rash 
counsels. John Locke hated tyranny and persecution as a philoso- 
pher; but his intellect and his temper preserved him from the vio- 
lence of a partisan. He had lived on confidential terms with 
‘Shaftesbury, and had thus incurred the displeasure of the court. 
Locke’s prudence had, however, been such that it would have been 
to little purpose to bring him even before the corrupt and partial 


* Grey’s Narrative; Wade’s Confession, Harl. MS. 6845. 
+ Burnet, i. 641. ¢t Grey’s Narrative. 


’ 
do } 


302 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


tribunals of that age. In one point, however, he was vulnerable, 
He was a student of Christ Church in the University of Oxford. It 
was determined to drive from that celebrated college the greatest 
man of whom it could ever boast. But this was not easy. Locke 
had, at Oxford, abstained from expressing any opinion on the poli- 
tics of the day. Spies had been set about him. Doctors of Divinity 
and Masters of Arts had not been ashamed to perform the vilest of all 
offices, that of watching the lips of a companion in order to report 
his words to his ruin. ‘The conversation in the hall had been pur- 
posely turned to irritating topics, to the Exclusion Bill, and to the char- 
acter of the Earl of Shaftesbury, but in vain. Locke neither broke 
out nor dissembled, but maintained such steady silence and compos- 
ure as forced the tools of power to own with vexation that never 
man was so complete a master of his tongue and of his passions. 
When it was found that treachery could do nothing, arbitrary power 
was used. After vainly trying to inveigle Locke into a fault, the 
government resolved to punish him without one. Orders came from 
Whitehall that he should be ejected; and those orders the Dean and 
Canons made haste to obey. 

Locke was travelling on the Continent for his health when he 
learned that he had been deprived of his home and of his bread with- 
out a trial or even a notice. The injustice with which he had heen 
treated would have excused him if he had resorted to violent methods 
of redress. But he was not to be blinded by personal resentment; 
he augured no good from the schemes of those.who had assembled 
at Amsterdam; and he quietly repaired to Utrecht, where, while his 
partners in misfortune were planning their own destruction, he em- 
ployed himself in writing his celebrated letter on Toleration.* 

The English government was early apprised that something was 
in agitation among the outlaws. An invasion of England seems not 
to have been at first expected; but it was apprehended that Argyle 
would shortly appear in arms among his clansmen. A proclamation 
was accordingly issued directing that Scotland should be put intoa 
state of defence. The militia was ordered to be in readiness. All 
the clans hostile to the name of Campbell were set in motion. Joln 
Murray, Marquess of Athol, was appointed Lord Lieutenant of 
Argyleshire, and, at the head of a great body of his followers, occu- 
pied the castle of Inverary. Some suspected persons were arrested. 
Others were compelled to give hostages. Ships of war were sent to 


* Le Clere’s Life of Locke; Lord King’s Life of Locke; Lord Grenville’s Ox- 
ford and Locke. Locke must not be confounded with the Anabaptist Nicholas 
Look, whose name was spelled Locke in Grey’s Confession, and who is men- 
tioned in the Lansdowne MS. 1152, and in the Buccleuch narrative appended to 
Mr. Rose’s dissertation. I should hardly think it necessary to make this re- 
mark, but that the similarity of the two names appears to have misled a man 
so well acquainted with the history of those times as Speaker Onslow. See his 
note on Burnet, i. 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 353 


cruise near the Isle of Bute; and part of the army of Ireland was 
moved to the coast of Ulster.* 

While these preparations were making in Scotland, James called 
into his closet Arnold Van Citters, who had long resided in England 
as Ambassador from the United Provinces, and Everard Van Dyk- 
velt, who, after the death of Charles, had been sent by the States 
General on a special mission of condolence and congratulation. The 
King said that he had received from unquestionable sources intelli- 
gence of designs which were forming against the throne by his ban- 
ished subjects in Holland. Some of the exiles were cutthroats, 
whom nothing but the special providence of God had prevented from 
committing a foul murder; and among them’was the owner of the 
spot which had been fixed for the butchery. ‘‘Of all men living,” 
said the King, ‘‘ Argyle has the greatest means of annoying me; and 
of all places Holland is that whence a blow may be best aimed 
against me.” The Dutch envoys assured his Majesty that what he 
had said should instantly be communicated to the government which 
they represented, and expressed their full confidence that every ex- 
ertion wouid be made to satisfy him.+ 

They were justified im expressing this confidence. Both the 
Prince of Orange and the States General, were, at this time, most 

' desirous that the hospitality of their country should not be abused 
for purposes of which the English government could justly complain. 
James had lately held language which encouraged the hope that he 
would not patiently submit to the ascendency of France. It seemed 
probable that he would consent to form a close alliance with the 
United Provinces and the House of Austria. There was, therefore, 
at the Hague, an extreme anxiety to avoid all that could give him 
offence. ‘The personal interest of William was also on this occasion 
identical with the interest of his father in law. 

But the case was one which required rapid and vigorous action; 
and the nature of the Batavian institutions made such action almost 
impossible. The Union of Utrecht, rudely formed, amidst the 
agonies of a revolution, for the purpose of meeting immediate exi- 
gencies, had never been deliberately revised and perfected in a time of 
tranquillity. Every one of the seven commonwealths which that 
Union had bound together retained almost all the rights of sovcreign- 
ty, and asserted those rights punctiliously against the central govern- 
ment. As the federal authorities had not the means of exacting 
prompt obedience from the provincial authorities, so the provincial 
authorities had not the means of exacting prompt obedience from 
the municipal authorities. Holland alone contained eighteen cities, 
each of which was, for many purposes, an independent state, jealous 


——_ — 


ov orow book iii. chap. ix; London Gazette, May 11, 1685; Barillon, May 
< Register of the Proceedings of the States General, May 5-15, 16385. 


. 
j 
. 
¥ > 
“= 
-_ oy 


304 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


of all interference from without. If the rulers of such a city received 
from the Hague an order which was unpleasing to them, they either 
neglected it altogether, or executed it languidly and tardily. In 
some town councils, indeed, the influence of the Prince of Orange 
was all powerful. But unfortunately the place where the British 
exiles had congregated, and where their ships had been fitted out, 
was the rich and populous Amsterdam; and the magistrates of 
Amsterdam were the heads of the faction hostile to the federal goy- 
ernment and to the House of Nassau. The naval administration of 
the United Provinces was conducted by five distinct boards of Ad- 
miralty. One of those boards sate at Amsterdam, was partly nom- 
inated by the authorities of that city, and seems to have been entirely 
animated by their spirit. 

All the endeavours of the federal government to effect what James 
desired were frustrated by the evasions of the functionaries of 
Amsterdam, and by the blunders of Colonel Bevil Skelton, who had 
just arrived at the Hague as envoy from England. Skelton had been 
born in Holland during the English troubles, and was therefore sup- 
posed to be peculiarly qualified for his post; * but he was, in truth, 
unfit for that and for every other diplomatic situation. Excellent 
judges of character pronounced him to be the most shallow, fickle, 
passionate, presumptuous, and garrulous of men.+ He took no 
serious notice of the proceedings of the refugees till three vessels 
which had been equipped for the expedition to Scotland were safe 
out of the Zuyder Zee, till the arms,ammunition, and provisions were 
on board, and till the passengers had embarked. Then, instead of 
applying, as he should have done, to the States General, who sate 
close to his own door, he sent a messenger to the magistrates of 
Amsterdam, with a request that the suspected ships might be de- 
tained. ‘The magistrates of Amsterdam answered that the entrance 
of the Zuyder Zoe was out of their jurisdiction, and referred him to 
the federal government. It was notorious that this was a mere ex- 
cuse, and that, if there had been any real wish at the Stadthouse of 
Amsterdam to prevent Argyle from sailing,no difficulties would have 
been made. Skelton now addressed himself to the States General. 
They showed every disposition to comply with his demand, and, as 
the case was urgent, departed from the course which they ordinaril 
observed in the transaction of business. On the same day on whic 
he made his application to them, an order, drawn in exact conform- 
ity with his request, was despatched to the Admiralty of Amsterdam. 
But this order, in consequence of some misinformation, did not cor- 
rectly describe the situation of the ships. They were said to be in 
the Texel. They were in the Vlie. The Admiralty of Amsterdam 


* This is mentioned in his credentials, dated on the 16th of March, 1684-5. 
+ Bonrepaux to Seignelay, February 4-14, 1686. 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 358 


_made this error a plea for doing nothing; and, before the error couid 
be rectified, tne three ships had sailed.* 

The last hours which Argyle passed on the coast of Holland were 
hours of great anxiety. Near him lay a Dutch man of war whose 
broadside would in a moment have put an end to his expedition. 
Round his little fleet a boat was rowing, in which were some persons 
with telescopes whom he suspected to be spies. But no effectual 
step was taken for the purpose of detaining him; and on the after- 
noon of the second of May he stood out to sea before a favourable 
breeze. 

The voyage was prosperous. On the sixth the Orkneys were in 
sight. Argyle very unwisely anchored off Kirkwall, and allowed 
two of his followers to go onshore there. The Bishop ordered them 
to be arrested. The retugees proceeded to hold a long and animated 
debate on this misadventure: for, from the beginning to the end of 
their expedition, however languid and irresolute their conduct might 
be, they never in debate wanted spirit or perseverance. Some were 
for an attack on Kirkwall. Some were for proceeding without delay 
to Argyleshire. At last the Earl seized some gentlemen who lived 
near the coast of the island, and proposed to the Bishop an exchange 
of prisoners. The Bishop returned no answer; and the fleet, after 
losing three days, sailed away. 

This delay was fuil of danger. It was speedily known at Edin- 
burgh that the rebel squadron had touched at the Orkneys. Troops 
were instantly put in motion. When the Earl reached his own prov- 
ince, he found that preparations had been made to repel him. At 
Dunstaffnage he sent his second son Charles on shore to call the 
Campbells to arms. But Charles returned with gloomy tidings. The 
herdsmen and fishermen were indeed ready to rally round Mac Callum 
More; but, of the heads of the clan, some were in confinement, and 
others had fled. Those gentlemen who remained at their homes were 
either well affected to the government or afraid of moving, and re- 
fused even to see the son of their chief. From Dunstaffnage the 
small armament proceeded to Campbelltown, near the southern ex- 
tremity of the peninsula of Kintyre. Here the Earl published a 
manifesto, drawn up in Holland, under the direction of the Com- 
mittee, by James Stewart, a Scotch advocate, whose pen was, a few 
months later, employed in a very different way. In this paper were 
set forth, with a strength of language sometimes approaching to 
scurrility, many real and some imaginary grievances. It was hinted 
that the late King had died by poison. A chief object of the ex- 
pedition was declared to be the entire suppression, not only of 
Popery, but of Prelacy, which was termed the most bitter root and 

* Avaux Neg. Marie May 1-11, May 5-15, 1685; Sir Patrick Hume’s Narrative: © 


- Letter from the Admiralty of Amsterdam to the States General, dated June 20, 
(685; Memorial of Skelton, delivered to the States General, May 10, 1685. 


356 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


offspring of Popery; and all good Scotchmen were exhorted to do 
valiantly for the cause of their country and of their God. 

Zealous as Argyle was for what he considered as pure religion, he 
did not scruple to practise one rite half Popish and half Pagan. The 
mysterious cross of yew, first set on fire, and then quenched in the 
blood of a goat, was sent forth to summon all the Campbells, from 
sixteen to sixty. The isthmusof Tarbet was appointed for the place 
of gathering. The muster, though small indeed when compared 
with what it would have been if the spirit and strength of the clan 
had been unbroken, was still formidable. The whole force assembled 
amounted to about eighteen hundred men. Argyle divided his 
mountaineers into three regiments, and proceeded to appoint officers. 

The bickerings which had begun in Holland had never been inter- 
mitted during the whole course of the expedition; but at Tarbet 
they became more violent than ever. The Committee wished to in- 
terfere even with the patriarchal dominion of the Earl over the 
Campbells, and would not allow him to settle the military rank of 
his kinsmen by his own authority. While these disputatious meddlers 
tried to wrest from him his power over the Highlands, they carried 
on their own correspondence with the Lowlands, and received and 
sent letters which were never communicated to the nominal General. 
Hume and his confederates had reserved to themselves the superin- 
tendence of the stores, and conducted this important part of the 
administration of war with a laxity hardly to be distinguished from 
dishonesty, suffered the arms to be spoiled, wasted the provisions, 
and lived riotously at a time when they ought to have set to all 
beneath them an example of abstemiousness. 

The great question was whether the Highlands or the Lowlands 
should be the seat of war. The Earl’s first object was to establish 
his authority over his own domains, to drive out the invading clans 
which had been poured from Perthshire into Argyleshire, and to 
take possession of the ancient seat of his family at Inverary. He 
might then hope to have four or five thousand claymores at his com- 
mand. With such a force he would be able to defend that wild 
country against the whole power of the kingdom of Scotland, and 
would also have secured an excellent base for offensive operations. 
This seems to have been the wisest course open to him, Rumbold, 
who had been trained in an excellent military school, and who, as 
an Englishman, might be supposed to be an impartial umpire between 
the Scottish factions, did all in his power to strengthen the Earl’s 
“hands. But Hume and Cochrane were utterly impracticable. Their 
jealousy of Argyle was, in truth, stronger than their wish for the 
success of the expedition. They saw that, among his own mountains — 
and lakes, and at the head of an army chiefly composed of his own — 
tribe, he would be able to bear down their opposition, and to exercise 
the full authority of a General. They muttered that the only men — 
who had the good cause at heart were the Lowlanders, and that the 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 3057 


Campbells took up arms neither for liberty nor for the Church of 
God, but for Mac Callum More alone. 
Cochrane declared that he would go to Ayrshire if he went by 


himself, and with nothing but a pitchfork in his hand. Argyle, 


after long resistance, consented, against his better judgment, to divide 
his little army. He remained with Rumbold in the Highlands. 
Cochrane and Hume were at the head of the foree which sailed to 
nvade the Lowlands. 

Ayrshire was Cochrane’s object: but the coast of Ayrshire was 
guarded by English frigates; and the adventurers were under the 


“necessity of running up the estuary of the Clyde to Greenock, then 


a small fishing village consisting of a single row of thatched hovels, 
now a great and flourishing port, of which the customs amount to 


“more than five times the whole revenue which the Stuarts derived 


from the kingdom of Scotland. A party of militia lay at Greenock: 
but Cochrane, who wanted provisions, was determined to land. 
Hume objected. Cochrane was peremptory, and ordered an oflicer, 
named Elphinstone, to take twenty men in a boat to the shore. But 
the wrangling spirit of the leaders had infected all ranks. Elphin- 
stone answered that he was bound to obey only reasonable com- 
mands, that he considered this command as unreasonable, and, in 
short, that he would not go. Major Fullarton, a brave man, esteemed 
by all parties, but peculiarly attached to Argyle, undertook to land 
with only twelve men, and did so in spite of a fire from the coast. A 
slight skirmish followed. The militia fell back. Cochrane entered 
Greenock and procured a supply of meal, but found no disposition 
to insurrection among the people. 

In fact, the state of public feeling in Scotland was not such as the 
exiles, misled by the infatuation common in all ages to exiles, had 
supposed it tobe. The government was, indeed, hateful and hated. 
But the malecontents were divided into parties which were almost as 
hostile to one another as to their rulers ; nor was any of those parties 
eager to join the invaders. Many thought that the insurrection had 
no chance of success. The spirit of many had been effectually 
broken by long and cruel oppression. There was, indeed, a class of 
enthusiasts who were little in the habit of calculating chances, and 
whom oppression had not tamed but maddened. But these men saw 
‘little difference between Argyle and James. Their wrath had been 
heated to such a temperature that what every body else would have 
called boiling zeal seemed to them Laodicean lukewarmness. The 
Earl’s past life had been stained by what they regarded as the vilest 
apostasy. ‘The very Highlanders whom he now summoned to extir- 
pate Prelacy he had a few years before summoned to defend it. 
And were slaves who knew nothing and cared nothing about religion, 
who were ready to fight for synodical government, for Episcopacy, 
for Popery, just as Mac Callum More might be pleased to command, 
fit allies for the people of God? The manifesto, indecent and in- 


358 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


tolerant as was its tone, was, in the view of these fanatics, a cowardly 
and worldly performance. <A settlement such as Argyle would have 
made, such as was afterwards made by a mightier and happier de- 
liverer, seemed to them not worth a struggle. They wanted not 
only freedom of conscience for themselves, but absolute dominion 
over the consciences of others; not only the Presbyterian doctrine, 
polity, and worship, but the Covenant in its utmost rigour, Noth- 
ing would content them but that every end for which civil society 
exists should be sacrificed to the ascendency of a theological system. 
One who believed no. form of church government to be worth a 
breach of Christian charity, and who recommended comprehension 
and toleration, was, in their phrase, halting between Jehovah and 
Baal. One who condemned such acts as the murder of Cardinal 
Beatoun and Archbishop Sharpe fell into the same sin for which Saul 
had been rejected from being King over Israel. All the rules, by 
which, among civilised and Christian men, the harrors of war ere 
mitigated, were abominations in the sight of the Lord. Quarter was 
to be neither taken nor given. A Malay running a muck, a mad dog 
pursued by a crowd, were the models to be imitated by warriors 
fighting in just self-defence. To reasons such as guide the conduct 
of stateamen and generals the minds of these zealots were absolutely 
impervious. That aman should venture to urge such reasons was 
sufficient evidence that he was not one of the faithful. If the divine 
blessing were withheld, little would be effected by crafty politicians, 
by veteran captains, by cases of arms from Holland, or by regiments 
of unregenerate Celts from the mountains of Lorn. If, on the other 
hand, the Lord’s time were indeed come, he could still, as of old, 
cause the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and 
could save alike by many and by few. ‘The broadswords of Athol 
and the bayonets of Claverhouse would be put to rout by weapons 
as insignificant as the sling of David or the pitcher of Gideon.* 
Cochrane, having found it impossible to raise the population on the 
south of the Clyde, rejoined Argyle, who was in the island of Bute. 
The Earl now again proposed to.make an attempt upon Inverary. 
Again he encountered a pertinacious opposition. The seamen sided 
with Hume and Cochrane. The Highlanders were absolutely at the 
command of their chieftain. There was reason to fear that the two 
parties would come to blows; and the dread of such a disaster in- 
duced the Committee to make some concession. The castle of Ealan 
Ghierig, situated at the mouth of Loch Riddan, was selected to be 
the chief place of arms. ‘The military stores were disembarked there. 
The squadron was moored close to the walls in a place where it was 
protected by rocks and shallows such as, it was thought, no frigate 


*Tf any person is inclined to suspect that I have oxagnenty the absurdity 
and ferocity of these men, I would advise him to read two books, which will con- 
vince him that I have rather softened than overcharged the portrait, the Hind 
Let Loose, and Faithful Contendings Displayed. 


ee i i 
a 
a, a 


~ 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 259 


could pass. Outworks were thrown up. A battery was planted with 


some small guns taken from the ships. The command of the fort 


“was most unwisely given to Elphinstone, who had already proved him- 


self much more disposed to argue with his commanders than to fight 
the enemy. 

And now, during a few hours, there was some show of vigour. 
Rumbold took the castle of Ardkinglass. The Earl skirmished suc- 
cessfully with Athol’s troops, and was about to advance on Inver- 
ary, when alarming news from the ships and factions in the Com- 
mittee forced him to turn back. The King’s frigates had come 
nearer to Kalan Ghierig than had been thought possible. The Low- 
land gentlemen positively refused to advance further into the High- 
lands. Argyle hastened back to Ealan Ghierig. There he proposed 
to make an attack on the frigates. His ships, indeed, were ill fitted 
for such an encounter. But they would have been supported by a 
flotilla of thirty large fishing boats, each well manned with armed 
Highlanders. The Committee, however, refused to listen to this plan, 
and effectually counteracted it by raising a mutiny among the soldiers. 

All was now confusion and despondency. The provisions had 
been so ill managed by the Committee that there was no longer food 
for the troops. ‘The Highlanders consequently deserted by hundreds; 
and the Karl, brokenhearted by his misfortunes, yielded to the urgency 
of those who pertinaciously insisted that he should march into the 
Lowlands. 

The little army therefore hastened to the shore of Loch Long, 
passed that inlet by night in boats, and landed in Dumbartonshire. 
Hither, on the following morning, came news that the frigates had 
forced a passage, that all the Earl’s ships had been taken, and that 
Elphinstone had fled from Ealan Ghierig without a blow, leaving the 
castle and stores to the enemy. 

All that remained was to invade the Lowlands under every disad- 
vantage. Argyle resolved to make a bold push for Glasgow. But, 
as soon as this resolution was announced, the very men, who had, up 
to that moment, been urging him to hasten into the low country, 
took fright, argued, remonstrated, and when argument and remon- 
Strance proved vain, laid a scheme for seizing the boats, making their 
own escape, and leaving their General and his clansmen to conquer 
or perish unaided. This scheme failed; and the poltroons who had 
formed it were compelled to share with braver men the risks of the 
last venture. 

During the march through the country which lies between Loch 
Long and Loch Lomond, the insurgents were constantly infested by 
parties of militia. Some skirmishes took place, in which the Earl 
had the advantage; but the bands which he repelled, falling back 
before him, spread the tidings of his approach, and, soon after he 
had crossed the river Leven, he found a strong body of regular and 


__ irregular troops prepared to encounter him. 


oe 
s . 
bok: | 


360 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


He was for giving battle. Ayloffe was of the same opinion. 
Hume, on the other hand, declared that to fight would be madness. 
He saw one regiment in scarlet. More might be behind. To attack 
such a force was to rush on certain death. The best course was to 
remain quiet till night, and then to give the enemy the slip. | 

A sharp altercation followed, which was with difficulty quieted by 
the mediation of Rumbold. It was now evening. The hostile 
armies encamped at no great distance from each other. ‘The Earl 
ventured to propose a night attack, and was again overruled. 

Since it was determined not to fight, nothing was left but to take 
the step which Hume had recommended. ‘There was a chance that, 
by decamping secretly, and hastening all night across heaths and 
morasses, the Earl might gain many miles on the enemy, and might 
reach Glasgow without further obstruction. The watch fires were 
left burning; and the march began. And now disaster followed dis- 
aster fast. The guides mistook the track across the moors, and led 
the army into boggy ground. Military order could not be preserved 
by undisciplined and disheartened soldiers under a dark sky and on 
a treacherous and uneven soil. Panic after panic spread through the 
broken ranks. Every sight and sound was thought to indicate the 
approach of pursuers. Some of the officers contributed to spread 
the terror which it was their duty to calm. The army had become a 
mob; and the mob melted fast away. Great numbers fied under 
eover of the night. Rumbold and a few other brave men whom no 
danger could have scared lost their way, and were unable to rejoim 
the main body. When the day broke, only five hundred fugitives, 
wearied and dispirited, assembled at Kilpatrick. . 

All thought of prosecuting the war was at an end: and it was plain 
that the chiefs of the expedition would have sufficient difficulty in 
escaping with their lives. They fled in different directions. Hume 
reached the Continent in safety. Cochrane was taken and sent up 
to London. Argyle hoped to find a secure asylum under the roof of 
one of his old servants who lived near Kilpatrick. But this hope 
was disappointed; and he was forced to cross the Clyde. He as- 
sumed the dress of a peasant and pretened to be the guide of Major 
Fullarton, whose courageous fidelity was proof to all danger. ‘The 
friends journeyed together through Renfrewshire as far as Inchin- 
nan. At that place the Black Cart and the White Cart, two streams 
which now flow through prosperous towns, and turn the wheels of 
many factories, but which then held their quiet course through 
moors and sheepwalks, mingle before they join the Clyde. The only 
ford by which the travellers could cross was guarded by a party of 
militia. Some questions were asked. Fullarton tried to draw sus- 
picion on himself, in order that his companion might escape unno- 
ticed. But the minds of the questioners misgave them that the guide 
was not the rude clown that he seemed. They laid hands on him. 
He broke loose and sprang into the water, but was instantly chased. 


- 


ad ‘ 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 361 


- He stood at bay for a short time against five assailants. But he had 
no arms except his pocket pistols, and they were so wet, in conse- 
quence of his plunge, that they would not go off. He was struck to 
the ground with a broadsword, and secured. 

_ He owned himself to be the Earl of Argyle, probably in the hope 
that his great name would excite the awe and pity of those who had 
seized him. And indeed they were much moved. For they were 
plain Scotchmen of humble rank, and, though in arms for the crown, 
probably cherished a preference for the Calvinistic church govern- 
ment and worship, and had been accustomed to reverence their cap- 
tive as the head of an illustrious house and as a champion of the 
Protestant religion. But, though they were evidently touched, and 
though some of them even wept, they were not disposed to relinquish 
a large reward and to incur the vengeance of an implacable govern- 
ment. They therefore conveyed their prisoner to Renfrew. The 
man who bore the chief part in the arrest was named Riddell. On 
this account the whole race of Riddells was, during more than a cen- 
tury, held in abhorrence by the great tribe of Campbell. Within 
living memory, when a Riddell visited a fair in Argyleshire, he found 
it necessary to assume a false name. 

And now commenced the brightest part of Argyle’s career. His 
enterprise had hitherto brought on him nothing but reproach and de- 
rision. His great error was that he did not resolutely refuse to accept 
the name without the power of a general. Had he remained quietly 
at his retreat in Friesland, he would in a few years have been re- 
called with honour to his country, and would have been conspicuous 
among the ornaments and the props of constitutional monarchy. 
Had he conducted his expedition according to his own views, and 
carried with him no followers but such as were prepared implicitly to 
obey all his orders, he might possibly have effected something great. 
For what he wanted as a captain seems to have been, not courage, 
nor activity, nor skill, but simply authority. He should have known 
that of all wants this is the most fatal. Armies have triumphed 
under leaders who posssessed no very eminent qualifications. But 
what army commanded by a debating club ever escaped discomfiture 
and disgrace? 

The great calamity which had fallen on Argyle had this advan- 
tage, that it enabled him to show, by proofs not to be mistaken, 
What manner of man he was. From the day when he quitted Fries- 
land to the day when his followers separated at Kilpatrick, he had 
never been a free agent. He had borne the responsibility of a long 
series of measures which his judgment disapproved. Now at length 
he stood alone. Captivity had restored to him the noblest kind of 
liberty, the liberty of governing himself in all his words and actions 
- according to his own sense of the right and of the becoming. From 
that moment he became as one inspired with new wisdom and virtue. 
His intellect seemed to be strengthened and concentrated, his moral 


ray 


4 
4 
La | 


362 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


character to be at once elevated and softened. The insolence of the 
conquerors spared nothing that could try the temper of a man proud 
of ancient nobility and of patriarchal dominion. The prisoner was 
dragged through Edinburgh in triumph. He walked on foot, bare- 
headed, up the whole length of that stately street which, overshad- 
owed by dark and gigantic piles of stone, leads from Holyrood House 
to the Castle. Before him marched the hangman, bearing the ghastly ~ 
instrument which was to be used at the quartering block. The vic- 
tcrious party had not forgotten that, thirty-five years before this 
time, the father of Argyle had been at the head of the faction which 
put Montrose to death. Before that event the houses of Graham and ~ 
Campbell had borne no love to each other; and they had ever since 
been at deadly feud. Care was taken that the prisoner should pass — 
- through the same gate and the same streets through which Montrose 

had been led to the same doom.* When the Earl reached the Castle 
his legs were put in irons, and he was informed that he had but a 
few days to live. It had been determined not to bring him to trial 
for his recent offence, but to put him to death under the sentence 
pronounced against him several years before, a sentence so flagitiously 
ubjust that the most servile and obdurate lawyers of that bad age 
could not speak of it without shame. 

But neither the ignominious procession up the High Street; nor 
the near view of death, had power to disturb the gentle and majestic 
patience of Argyle. His fortitude was tried by a still more severe 
test. A paper of interrogatories was laid before him by order of the 
Privy Council. He replied to those questions to which he could 
reply without danger to any of his friends, and refused to say more. 
He was told that unless he returned fuller answers he should be put 
to the torture. James, who was doubtless sorry that he could not | 
feast his own eyes with the sight of Argyle in the boots, sent down to 
Edinburgh positive orders that nothing should be omitted which- 
could wring out of the traitor information against all who had been 
concerned in the treason. But menaces were vain. With torments 
and death in immediate prospect Mac Callum More thought far less 
of limself than of his poor clansmen. ‘‘I was busy this day,” he 
wiote from his cell, ‘‘ treating for them, and in some hopes. But 
this evening orders came that 1 must die upon Monday or Tuesday; 
and I am to be put to the torture if I answer not all questions upon 
oath, Yet I hope God shall support me.” 

The torture was not inflicted. Perhaps the magnanimity of the 
victim had moved the conquerors to unwonted compassion. He him- 
self remarked that at first they had been very harsh to him, but that 
they soon began to treat him with respect and kindness. God, he ~ 


* A few words which were in the first five editions have been omitted in this 
place. Here and in another passage I had, as Mr. Aytoun has observed, mis- 
taken the City Guards, which were commanded by an officer named Graham, 
for the Dragoons of Graham of Claverhouse. 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. _ 363 


said, had melted their hearts. It is certain that he did not, to save 
himself from the utmost cruelty of his enemies, betray any of his 
friends. On the last morning of his life he wrote these words: ‘‘I 
have named none to their disadvantage. I thank God he hath sup- 
ported me wonderfully!” 

He composed his own epitaph, a short poem, full of meaning and 
spirit, simple and forcible in style, and not contemptible in versifica- 
tion. In this little piece he complained that, though his enemies had 
repeatedly degreed his death, his friends had been still more cruel. 
A comment on these expressions is to be found in a letter which he 
addressed to a lady residing in Holland. She had furnished him with 
a large sum of money for his expedition, and he thought her entitled 

to a full explanation of the causes which had led to his failure. He 
acquitted his coadjutors of treachery, but described their folly, 
their ignorance, and their factious perverseness, in terms which their 

own testimony has since proved to have been richly deserved. He 
afterwards doubted whether he had not used language too severe to 
become a dying Christian, and, in a separate paper, begged his friend 
to suppress what he had said of these men. ‘‘Only this I must ac- 
knowledge,” he mildly added; ‘‘ they were not governable.” 

Most of his few remaining hours were passed in devotion, and in 
affectionate intercourse with some members of his family. He pro- 
fessed no repentance on account of his last enterprise, but bewailed, 
with great emotion, his former compliance in spiritual things with 
the pleasure of the government. He had, he said, been justly 
punished. One who had so long been guilty of cowardice and dis- 
simulation was not worthy to be the instrument of salvation to the 
State and Church. Yet the cause, he frequently repeated, was the 

_ cause of God, and would assuredly triumph. ‘‘I do not,” he said, 

“take on myseif to be a prophet. But I havea strong impression on 

my spirit, that deliverance will come very suddenly.” It is not 
Strange that some zealous Presbyterians should have laid up his 

‘Saying in their hearts, and should, at a later period, have attributed 
it to divine inspiration. 

So effectually had religious faith and hope, co-operating with 
natural courage and equanimity, composed his spirits, that, on the 
very day on which he was to die, he dined with appetite, conversed 
with gaiety at table, and, after his last meal, lay down, as he was 
wont, to take a short slumber, in order that his body and mind might 
be in full vigour when he should mount the scaffold. At this time 
one of the Lords of the Council, who had probably been bred a Presby- 
terian, and had been seduced by interest to join in oppressing the 
Church of which he had once been a member, came to the Castle 
with a message from his brethren, and demanded admittance to the 
Earl. It was answered that the Earl was asleep. The Privy Coun- 
cillor thought that this was a subterfuge, and insisted on entering. 
The door of the cell was softly opened; and there lay Argyle on the 


ae 


364 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


bed, sleeping, in his irons, the placid sleep of infancy. The con- 
science of the renegade smote him, He turned away sick at heart, 
ran out of the Castle, and took refuge in the dwelling of a lady of his 
family who lived hard by. There he flung himself on a couch, and 
gave himself up to an agony of remorse and shame. His kinswoman, 
alarmed by his looks and groans, thought that he had been taken 
with sudden illness, and begged him to drink a cup of sack. ‘‘ No, 
no,” he said; ‘‘ that will do me no good.” She prayed him to tell 
her what had disturbed him. ‘‘I have been,” he said, ‘Sin Argyle’s 
prison. I have seen him within an hour of eternity, sleeping as 
sweetly as ever man did. But as for me % 

And now the Earl had risen from his bed, and had prepared him- 
self for what was yet to be endured. He was first brought down the 
High Street to the Council House, where he was to remain during the 
short interval which was still to elapse before the execution. During 
that interval he asked for pen and ink, and wrote to his wife: ‘“‘ Dear 
heart, God is unchangeable: He hath always been good and gracious 
to me: and no place alters it. Forgive me all my faults; and now 
comfort thyself in Him, in whom only true comfort is to be found. 
The Lord be with thee, bless and comfort thee, my dearest. Adieu.” 

It was now time to leave the Council House. The divines who at- 
tended the prisoner were not of his own persuasion; but he listened 
to them with civility, and exhorted them to caution their flocks 
against those doctrines which all Protestant churches unite in con- 
demning. He mounted the scaffold, where the rude old guillotine of 
Scotland, called the Maiden, awaitcd him, and addressed the people 
in a speech, tinctured with the peculiar phraseology of his sect, but 

j breathing the spirit of serene piety. His enemies, he said, he for- 
gave, as he hoped to be forgiven. Only a single acrimonious expres- 
sion escaped him. One of the cpiscopal clergymen who attended him 
went to the edge of the scaffold, and called out ina loud voice, ‘‘M 
Lord dies a Protestant.” ‘‘ Yes,” said the Earl, stepping forward, 
‘‘and not only a Protestant, but with a heart hatred of Popery, of 
Prelacy, and of all superstition.” He then embraced his friends, put 
into their hands some tokens of remembrance for his wife and children, 


See also Burnet, i. 631, and the life of Bresson, published by Dr. Mac Crie. 
The account of the Scotch rebellion in the Life of James the Second, is a ridicu- 
lous romance, not written by the King himself, nor derived from his papers, but» 
Shee ewe by a Jacobite who did not even take the trouble to look at a map of 

e seat of war. 


- 


agg HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 365 


The head of the brave and sincere, though not blameless Rumbold, 
was already on the West Port of Edinburgh. Surrounded by factious 
and cowardly associates, he had, through the whole campaign, be- 
haved himself like a soldier trained in the school of the great Pro- 
tector, had in council strenuously supported the authority of Argyle, 
and had in the field been distinguished by tranquil intrepidity. After 
the dispersion of the army he was set upon by a party of militia. He 
defended himself desperately, and would have cut his way through 
them, had they not hamstringed his horse. He was brought to Edin- 
burgh mortally wounded. The wish of the government was that he 
should be executed in England. But he was so near death, that, if 
he was not hanged in Scotland, he could not be hanged at all; and 
the pleasure of hanging him was one which the conquerors could not 
bear to forego. It was indeed not to be expected that they would 
show much lenity to one who was regarded as the chief of the Rye 
House plot, and who was the owner of the building from which that 
plot took its name: but the insolence with which they treated the 
dying man seems to our more humane age almost incredible. One of 
the Scotch Privy Councillors told him that he was a confounded vil- 
lain. ‘‘I am at peace with God,” answered Rumbold, calmly; ‘‘ how 
then can I be confounded?” 

He was hastily tried, convicted, and sentenced to be hanged and 
quartered within a few hours, near the City Cross in the High Street. 
Though unable to stand without the support of two men, he main- 
tained his fortitude to the last, and under the gibbet raised his feeble 
voice against Popery and tyranny with such vehemence that the offi- 
cers ordered the drums to strike up, lest the people should hear him. 
He was a friend, he said, to limited monarchy. But he never would 
believe that Providence had sent a few men into the world ready 
booted and spurred to ride, and millions ready saddled and bridled to 
be ridden. ‘‘I desire,” he cried, ‘‘to bless and magnify God’s holy 
name for this, that I stand here, not for any wrong that I have done, 
but for adhering to his cause in an evil day. If every hair of my 
head were a man, in this quarrel I would venture them all.” 

Goth at his trial and at his execution he spoke of assassination 
with the abhorrence which became a good Christian and a brave 
soldier. He had never, he protested, on the faith of a dying man, 
harboured the thought of committing such villany. But he frankly 
owned that, in conversation with his fellow conspirators, he had men- 
tioned his own house as a place where Charles and James might with 
advantage be attacked, and that much had been said on the subject, 
though nothing had been determined. It may at first sight seem that 
this acknowledgment is inconsistent with his declaration that he had 
always regarded assassination with horror. But the truth appears to 
be that he was imposed upon by a distinction which deluded many of 
his contemporaries. Nothing would have induced him to put poison 
into the food of the two princes, or to poniard them ia their sleep. 


366 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


But to make an unexpected onset on the troop of Life Guards, which 
surrounded the royal coach, to exchange sword cuts and pistol shots, 
and ‘to take the chance of slaying or of being slain, was, in his view, 
a lawful military operation. Ambuscades and surprises were among 
the ordinary incidents of war. Every old soldier, Cavalier or Round- 
head, had been engaged in such enterprises. If in the skirmish the 
King should fall, he would fall by fair fighting and not by murder. 
Precisely the same reasoning was employed, after the Revolution, by 
James himself and by some.of his most devoted followers, to justify 
a wicked attempt on the life of William the Third. A band of Jacob- 
ites was commissioned to attack the Prince of Orange in his Winter 
quarters. The meaning latent under this specious phrase was that 
the Prince’s throat was to be cut as he went in his coach from Rich- 
mond to Kensington. It may seem strange that such fallacies, the 
dregs of the Jesuitical casuistry, should have had power to seduce 
men of heroic spirit, both Whigs and Tories, into a crime on which 
divine and human laws have justly set a peculiar note of infamy. 
But no sophism is too gross to delude minds distempered by party 
spirit. 

Argyle, who survived Rumbold a few hours, left a dying testimony 
to the virtues of the gallant Englishman. ‘‘ Poor Rumbold was a 
great support to me, and a brave man, and died Christianly.” + 

Aylofie showed as much contempt of death as either Argyle or 
Rumbold: but his end did not, like theirs, edify pious minds. 
Though political sympathy had drawn him towards the Puritans, he 
had no religious sympathy with them, and was indeed regarded by 
them as little better than an atheist. He belonged to that section of 
the Whigs which sought for models rather among the patriots of 
Greece and Rome than among the prophets and judges of Israel. He 
was taken prisoner, and carried to Glasgow. There he attempted to 
destroy himself with a small penknife: but though he gave himself 
several wounds, none of them proved mortal, and he had strength 
enough left to bear a journey to London. He was brought before the 
Privy Council, and interrogated by the King, but had too much ele- 
vation of mind to save himself by informing against others, A story 


* Wodrow, III. ix. 10; Western Martyrology; Burnet, i. 683; Fox’s History, 
Appendix iv. I can find no way, except that indicated in the text, of reconciling 
Rumbold’s denial that he had ever admitted into his mind the thought of assas- 
sination with his confession that he had himself mentioned his own house as a 
convenient place for an attack on the royal brothers. The distinction which I 
suppose him to have taken was certainly taken by another Rye House conspira- 
tor, who was, like him, an old soldier of the Commonwealth, Captain Walcot. 
On Walcot’s trial, West, the witness for the crown, said, *‘ Captain, you did agree 
to be one ox those that were to fight the Guards.’’ ‘‘ What, then, was the reason,”’ 
asked Chief Justice Pemberton, “ that he would not kill the King?’ ‘‘ He said,” 
eile ge West, ‘that it was a base thing to kill a naked man, and he would not 

o it.” 
+ Wodrow, IL. ix. 9, 


2 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 367 


was current among the Whigs that the King said, ‘‘ You had better 
be frank with me, Mr. Ayloffe. You know that it is in my power to 
pardon you.” Then, it was rumoured, the captive broke his sullen 
silence, and answered, ‘‘It may be in your power; but it is not in 
your nature.” He was executed under his old outlawry before the 
gate of the Temple, and died with stoical composure.* 

In the meantime the vengeance of the conquerors was mercilessly 
wreaked on the people of Argyleshire. Many of the Campbells were 
hanged by Athol without a trial; and he was with difficulty restrained 
by the Privy Council from taking more lives. The. country to the 
‘extent of thirty miles round Inverary was wasted. Houses were 
burned: the stones of mills were broken to pieces; fruit trees wére 
cut down, and the very roots seared with fire. The nets and fishing 
boats, the sole means by which many inhabitants of the coast subsis- 
ted, were destroyed. More than three hundred rebels and malecon- 
tents were transported to the colonies. Many of them were also sen- 
tenced to mutilation. On asingle day the hangman of Edinburgh 
eut off the ears of thirty-five prisoners. Several women were sent 
across the Atlantic after being first branded in the cheek with a hot 
iron. It was even in contemplation to obtain an act of Parliament 
proscribing the name of Campbell, as the name of Macgregor had 
been proscribed eighty years before.+ 

Argyle’s expedition appears to have produced little sensation in the 
south of the island. ‘The tidings of his landing reached London just 
before the English Parliament met. The King mentioned the news 
from the throne; and the Houses assured him that they would stand 
by him against every enemy. Nothing more was required of them. 
Over Scotland they had no authority; and a war of which the theatre 
was so distant, and of which the event might, almost from the first, 
be easily foreseen, excited only a languid interest in London. 

But, a week before the final dispersion of Argyle’s army, England 
was agitated by the news that a more formidable invader had landed 
on her own shores. It had been agreed among the refugees that Mon- 
mouth should sail from Holland six days after the departure of the 
Scots. He had deferred his expedition a short time, probably in the 
hope that most of the troops in the south of the island would be 
moved to the north as soon as war broke out in the Highlands, and 
that he should finc so force ready to oppose him. When at length 
i fe desirous to proceed, the wind had become adverse and vio- 

ent. 

While his small fleet lay tossing in the Texel, a contest was going 


A de's narrative, Harl. MS. 6845; Burnet, i. 634; Van Citters’s Despatch of 
oa = 1685; Luttrell’s Diary of the same date. . 

+ Wodrow, II. ix. 4, and III. ix. 10. Wodrow gives from the Acts of Council 
the names of all the prisoners who were transported, mutilated or branded. 


oat 


368 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


on among the Dutch authorities. The States General and the Prince 
of Orange were on one side, the Town Council and Admiralty of 
Amsterdam on the other. 

Skelton had delivered to the States General a list of the refugees 
whose residence in the United Provinces caused uneasiness to his 
master. The States General, anxious to grant every reasonable re- 
quest which James could make, sent copies of the list to the provin- 
cial authorities. The provincial authorities sent copies to the muni- 
cipal authorities. The magistrates of all the towns were directed to 
take such measures as might prevent the proscribed Whigs from mo- 
lesting the English government. In general those directions were 
obeyed. At Rotterdam in particular, where the influence of William 
was all powerful, such activity was shown as called forth warm ac- 
knowledgments from James. But Amsterdam was the chief seat of 
the emigrants; and the governing body of Amsterdam would see 
nothing, hear nothing, know of nothing. The High Bailiff of the 
city, who was himself in daily communication with Ferguson, re- 
ported to the Hague that he did not know where to find a single one 
of the refugees; and with this excuse the federal government was 
forced to be content. The truth was that the English exiles were as 
well known at Amsterdam, and as much stared at in the streets, as if 
they had been Chinese.* 

A few days later, Skelton received orders from his Court to request 
that, in consequence of the dangers which threatened his master’s 
throne, the three Scotch regiments in the service of the United Prov- 
inces might be sent to Great Britain without delay. He applied to 
the Prince of Orange; and the prince undertook to manage the mat- 
ter, but predicted that Amsterdam would raise some difficulty. The 
prediction proved correct. The deputies of Amsterdam refused to 
consent, and succeeded in causing some delay. But the question was 
not one of those on which, by the constitution of the republic, a 
single city could prevent the wish of the majority from being carried 


*Skelton’s letter is dated the 7-17th of May, 1686. It will be found, together 
with a letter of the Schout or High Bailiff of Amsterdam, in a little volume pub- 
lished a few months later, and entitled, ‘‘ Histoire des Evénemens Tragiques 
d’Angleterre.”” The documents inserted in that work are, as far as I have exam- 
ined them, given exactly from the Dutch archives, except that Skelton’s French, 
which was not the purest, is slightly corrected. See also Grey’s Narrative. 

Goodenough, on his examination after the battle of Sedgemoor, said, ‘The 
Seon of Amsterdam was a particular friend to this last design.””’ Lansdowne 

MS. 1152. 

It is not worth while to refute those writers who represent the Prince of 
Orange as an accomplice in Monmouth’s enterprise. The circumstance on 
which they chiefly rely is that the authorities of Amsterdam took no effectual 
steps for preventing the expedition from sailing. This cireumstance is in truth 
the strongest proof that the expedition was not favoured by William. No per- 
son, not profoundly ignorant of the institutions and politics of Holland, would 
aes the eee, answerable for the proceedings of the heads of the Loeve- 
stein party. 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 369 


into effect. The influence of William prevailed; and the troops were 
embarked with great expedition.* 

Skelton was at the same time exerting himself, not indeed very 
judiciously or temperately, to stop the ships which the English refu- 
gees had fitted out. He expostulated in warm terms with the Ad- 
miralty of Amsterdam. The negligence of that board, he said, had 
already enabled one band of rebels to invade Britain. For a second 
error of the same kind there could be no excuse. He peremptorily 
demanded that a large vessel, named the Helderenbergh, might be 
detained. It was pretended that this vessel was bound for the Can- 
aries. But, in truth, she had been freighted by Monmouth, carried 
twenty-six guns, and was Joaded with arms and ammunition. ‘The 
Admiralty of Amsterdam replied that the liberty of trade and navi- 
gation was not to be restrained for light reasons, and that the Hel- 
derenbergh could not be stopped without an order from the States 
General. Skelton, whose uniform practice seems to have been to be- 
gin at the wrong end, now had recourse to the States General. The 
States General gave the necessary orders. Then the Admiralty of 
Amsterdam pretended that there was not a sufficient naval force in 
the Texel to seize so large a ship as the Helderenbergh, and suffered 
Monmouth to sail unmolested.+ 

The weather was bad: the voyage was long; and several English 
men of war were cruising in the channel. But Monmouth escape 
both the sea and the enemy. As he passed by the cliffs of Dorset- 
shire, it was thought desirable to send a boat to the beach with one 
of the refugees named Thomas Dare. This man, though of low 
mind and manners, had great influence at Taunton. He was directed 
to hasten thither across the country, and to apprise his friends that 
Monmouth would soon be on English ground. 

On the morning of the eleventh of June the Helderenbergh, ac- 
companied by two smaller vessels, appeared off the port of Lyme. 
That town is a small knot of steep and narrow alleys, lying on a coast 
wild, rocky, and beaten by a stormy sea. The place was then chiefly 
remarkable for a pier which, in the days of the Plantagenets, had 
been constructed of stones, unhewn and uncemented. This ancient 
work, known by the name of the Cob, enclosed the only haven 
where, in a space of many miles, the fishermen could take refuge 
from the tempests of the Channel. 

The appearance of the three ships, foreign built and without col 
ours, perplexed the inhabitants of Lyme; and the uneasiness increased 


* ‘vaux Neg. June 7-17, 8-18, 14-24, 1685; Letter of the Prince of Orange to 
Lord Rochester, June 9, 1685. 

+ Van Citters, June 9-19, June 12-22, 1685. The correspondence of Skelton 
With the States General and with the Admiralty of Amsterdam isin the archives 
atthe itague. Some pieces will be found in the Evénemens Tragiques d’ Angle- 
terre. See also Burnet, i. 640. 

+ Wade’s Confession in the Hardwicke Papers; Harl. MS. 6845. 


370 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


when it was found that the Customhouse officers, who had gone on 
board according to usage, did not return. The town’s people re- 
paired to the cliffs, and gazed long and anxiously, but could find no 
solution of the mystery. At length seven boats put off from the 
largest of the strange vessels, and rowed to the shore. From these 
boats landed about eighty men, well armed and appointed. Among 
them were Monmouth, Grey, Fletcher, Ferguson, Wade, and Anthony 
Buyse, an officer who had been in the service of the Elector of Bran- 
denburg.* 

Monmouth commanded silence, kneeled down on the shore, thanked 
God for having preserved the friends of liberty and pure religion 
from the perils of the sea, and implored the divine blessing on what 
was yet to be done by land. He then drew his sword, and led his 
men over the cliffs into the town. 

As soon as it was known under what Jeader and for what purpose 
the expedition came, the enthusiasm of the populace burst through 
all restraints. The little town was in an uproar with men running 
to and fro, and shouting ‘‘ A Monmouth! a Monmouth! the Protes- 
tant religion!” Meanwhile the ensign of the adventurers, a blue 
flag, was set up in the marketplace. The military stores were de- 
posited in the town hall; and a Declaration. setting forth the objects 
of the expedition was read from the Cross.+ 

This Declaration, the masterpiece of Ferguson’s genius, was not a 
grave manifesto such as ought to be put forth by a leader drawing 
the sword for a great public cause, but a libel of the lowest class, 
both in sentiment and language.t{ It contained undoubtedly many 
just charges against the government. Bu’ these charges were set 
forth in the prolix and inflated style of a bad pamphlet; and the paper 
contained other charges of which the whole disgrace falls on those 
who made them. The Duke of York, it was positively affirmed, had 
burned down London, had strangled Godfrey, had cut the throat of 
Essex, and had poisoned the late King. On account of those villan- 
ous and unnatural crimes, but chiefly of that execrable fact, the late 
horrible and barbarous parricide,—such was the copiousness and such 
the felicity of Ferguson’s diction,— James was declared a mortal and 
bloody enemy, a tyrant, a murderer, and an usurper. No treaty 
should be made with him. The sword should not be sheathed till he 
had been brought to condign punishment asa traitor. The govern- 
ment should be settled on principles favourable to liberty. Al] Protes- 
tant sects should be tolerated. The forfeited charters should be re- 


*See Buyse’s evidence against Monmouth and Fletcher in the Collection of 
State Trials. 

+ Journals of the House of Commons, June 13, 1685; Harl. MS. 6845; Lans- 
downe MS. 1152. ; ; 
¢ Burnet, i. 641; Goodenough’s confession in the Lansdowne MS. 1152. Copies 
of the Declaration, as originally printed, are very rare; but there is one in the 
British Museum. P 


iP sk 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 371 


stored. Parliament should be held annually, and should no longer 
be prorogued or dissolved by royal caprice. The only standing force 


should be the militia: the militia should be commanded by the 
Sheriffs: and the Sheriffs should be chosen by the freeholders. 
Finally Monmouth declared that he could prove himself to have been 
born in lawful wedlock, and to be, by right of blood, King of Eng- 
land, but that, for the present, he waived his claims, that he would 
leave them to the judgment of a free Parliament, and that, in the 
meantime, he desired to be considered only as the Captain General of 
the English Protestants, who were in arms against tyranny and 
Popery. 

Disgraceful as this manifesto was to those who put it forth, it was 
not unskilfully framed for the purpose of stimulating the passions of 
the vulgar. In the West the effect was great. The gentry and 
clergy of that part of England were indeed, with few exceptions, 
Tories. But the yeomen, the traders of the towns, the peasants, and 
the artisans were generally animated by the old Roundhead spirit. 
Many of them were Dissenters, and had been goaded by petty perse- 
cution into a temper fit for desperate enterprise. The great mass of 
the population abhorred Popery and adored Monmouth. He was no 


stranger tothem. His progress through Somersetshire and. Devon- 


had i 


a 


shire in the summer of 1680 was still fresh in the memory of all men. 
He was on that occasion sumptuously entertained by Thomas Thynne 
at Longleat Hall, then, and perhaps still, the most magnificent 
country house in England. From Longleat to Exeter the hedges 
were lined with shouting spectators. The roads were strewn with 
boughs and flowers. The multitude, in their eagerness to see and 
touch their favourite, broke down the palings of parks, and besieged 
the mansions where he was feasted. When he reached Chard his es- 
cort consisted of five thousand horsemen. At Exeter all Devonshire 
had been gathered together to welcome him. One striking part of 
the show was a company of nine hundred young men who, clad ina 


_ white uniform, marched before him into the city.* The turn of for- 


tune which had alienated the gentry from his cause had produced no 
effect on the common people. To them he was still the good Duke, 
the Protestant Duke, the rightful heir whom a vile conspiracy kept 
out of his own. They came to his standard in crowds. All the 
clerks whom he could employ were too few to take down the names 
of the recruits. Before he had been twenty-four hours on English 
round he was at the head of fifteen hundred men. Dare arrived 
trom Taunton with forty horsemen of no very martial appearance, 
and brought encouraging intelligence as to the state of public feeling 
in Somersetshire. As yet all seemed to promise well.+ — 

But a force was collecting at Bridport to oppose the insurgents. 


— 


* Historical Account of the Life and magnanimous Actions of the most illus- 


_ trious Protestant Prince James, Duke of Monmouth, 1683. 


t Wade's Confession, Hardwicke Papers; Axe Papers; Harl. MS. 6845. 


~ 


872 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


On the thirteenth of June the red regiment of Dorsetshire militia 
came pouring into that town. The Somersetshire, or yellow regi 
ment, of which Sir William Portman, a Tory gentleman of great 
note, was Colonel, was expected to arrive on the following day.* 
The Duke determined to strike an immediate blow. A detach- 
ment of his troops was preparing to march to Bridport when a dis- 
astrous event threw the whole camp into confusion. 

Fletcher of Saltoun had been appointed to command the cavalry 
under Grey. Fletcher was. ill mounted; and indeed there were few 
chargers in the camp which had not been taken from the plough. 
When he was ordered to Bridport, he thought that the exigency of 
the case warranted him in borrowing, without asking permission, a 
fine horse belonging to Dare. Dare resented this liberty, and assailed 
Fletcher with gross abuse. Fletcher kept his temper better than any 
one who knew him expected. At last Dare, presuming on the pa- 
tience with which his insolence had been endured, ventured to shake 
a switch at the high born and high spirited Scot. Fletcher’s blood 
boiled. He drew a pistol and shot Dare dead. Such sudden and 
violent revenge would not have been thought strange in Scotland, 
where the Jaw had always been weak, where he who did not right 
himself by the strong hand was not likely to be righted at all, and 
where, consequently, human life was held almost as cheap as in the 
worst governed provinces of Italy. But the people of the southern 
part of the island were not accustomed to see deadly weapons used 
and blood spilled on account of a rude word or gesture, except in 
duel between gentlemen with equal arms. There was a general cry 
for vengeance on the foreigner who had murdered an Englishman. 
Monmouth could not resist the clamour. Fletcher, who, when his 
first burst of rage had spent itself, was overwhelmed with remorse 
and sorrow, took refuge on board of the Helderenbergh, escaped to 
the Continent, and repaired to Hungary, where he fought bravely 
against the common enemy of Christendom.+ } 

Situated as the insurgents were, the loss of a man of parts and 
energy was not easily to be repaired. Early on the morning of the 
following day, the fourteenth of June, Grey, accompanied by Wade, 
marched with about five hundred men to attack Bridport. A con- 
fused and indecisive action took place, such as was to be expected 
when two bands of ploughmen, officered by country gentlemen and 
barristers, were opposed to each other. Fora time Monmouth’s men 
drove the militia before them. Then the militia made a stand, and 
Monmouth’s men retreated in some confusion. Grey and his cavalry 
never stopped till they were safe at Lyme again: but Wade rallied 
the infantry and brought them off in good order. t 


* Harl. MS. 6845. 

+ Buyse’s evidence in the Collection of State Trials; Burnet, i. 642; Ferguson's 
MS. quoted by Eachard. 

+ London Gazette, June 18, 1685; Wade’s Confession, Hardwicke Papers. 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 373 


There was a violent outcry against Grey ; and some of the adven- 
turers pressed Monmouth to take a severe course. Monmouth, how- 
ever, would not listen to this advice. His lenity has been attributed 
by some writers to his good nature, which undoubtedly often 
amounted to weakness. Others have supposed that he was unwilling 
to deal harshly with the only peer who served in his army. It is 
probable, however, that the Duke, who, though not a general of the 
highest order, understood war very much better than the preachers 
and lawyers who were always obtruding their advice on him, made 
allowances which people altogether inexpert in military affairs never 
thought of making. In justice to a man who has had few defenders, 
it must be observed that the task, which, throughout this campaign, 
Was assigned to Grey, was one which, if he had been the boldest and 
most skilful of soldiers, he would scarcely have performed in such 
& manner as to gain credit. He was at the head of the cavalry. It 
is notorious that a horse soldier requires a longer training than a foot 
soldier, and that the war horse requires a longer training than his 
rider. Something may be done with a raw infantry which has en- 
thusiasm and animal courage: but nothing can be more helpless than 
araw cavalry, consisting of yeomen and tradesmen mounted on cart 
horses and post horses: and such was the cavalry which Grey com- 
manded. ‘The wonder is, not that his men did not stand fire with 
resolution, not that they did not use their weapons with vigour, but 
tiat they were able to keep their seats. 

Still recruits came in by hundreds. Arming and drilling went 02 
all day. Meantime the news of the insurrection hal spread fast and 
wide. On the evening on which the Duke landed Gregory Alford, 
Mayor of Lyme, a zealous Tory, and a bitter persecutor of Noncon- 
formists, sent off his servants to give the alarm to the gentry of 
Somersetshire and Dorsetshire, and himself took horse for the West. 
Late at night he stopped at Honiton, and thence despatched a few 
hurried lines to London with the ill tidings.* He then pushed on to 
Exeter, where he found Christopher Monk, Duke of Albemarle. 
This nobleman, the son and heir of George Monk, the restorer of the 
Stuarts, was Lord Lieutenant of Devonshire, and was then holding a 
muster of militia. Four thousand men of the trainbands were actu- 
ally assembled under his command. He seems to have thought that, 
with this force, he should be able at once to crush the rebellion. He 
therefore marched towards Lyme. : 

But when, on the afternoon of Monday the fifteenth of June, he 
reached Axminster, he found the insurgents drawn up there to en- 
counter him. They presented a resolute front Four field pieces 
were pointed against the royal troops. The thick hedges, which on 
each side overhung the narrow lanes, were lined with musketeers. 
Albemarle, however, was less alarmed by the preparations of the 


* Lords’ Journals, June 13, 1685. 


me 


374 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. ’ 4 


enemy than by the spirit which appeared in his own ranks, Such 
was Monmouth’s popularity among the common people of Deyon- 
shire that, if once the trainbands had caught sight of his well 
known face and figure, they would have probably gone over to him in 
a body. 

Babemanle therefore, though he had a great superiority of force, 
thought it advisable to retreat. The retreat soon become a rout. 
The whole country was strewn with the arms and uniforms which 
the fugitives had thrown away; and, had Monmouth urged the pur- 
suit with vigour, he would probably have taken Exeter without a 
blow. But he was satisfied with the advantage which he had gained, 
and thought it desirable that his recruits should be better trained 
before they were employed in any hazardous service. He therefore 
marched towards Taunton, where he arrived on the eighteenth of 
June, exactly a week after his landing.* : 

The Court and the Parliament had been greatly moved by the 
news from the West. At five in the morning of Saturday the thir- 
teenth of June, the King had received a letter which the Mayor of 
Lyme had despatched from Honiton. The Privy Council was in- 
stantly called together. Orders were given that the strength of every 
company of infantry and of every troop of cavalry should be in- 
creased. Commissions were issued for the levying of new regiments, 
Alford’s communication was laid before the Lords; and its substance 
was communicated to the Commons by amessage. The Commons 
examined the couriers who had arrived from the West, and instantly 
ordered a bill to be brought in for attainting Monmouth of high trea- 
son. Addresses were voted assuring the King that both his peers 
and people were determined to stand by him with life and for- 
tune against all his enemies, At the next meeting of the Houses 
they ordered the Declaration of the rebels to be burned by the 
hangman, and passed the bill of attainder through all its stages. 
That bill received the royal assent on the same day; and a re- 
ward of five thousand pounds was promised for the apprehension of 
Monmouth. + 

The fact that, Monmouth was in arms against the government was 
so notorious that the bill of attainder became a law with only a faint 
show of opposition from one or two peers, and Has seldom been 
severely censured even by Whig historians. Yet, when we consider 
how important it is that legislative and judicial functions should be 
kept distinct, how important it is that common fame, however strong 
and general, should not be received as a legal proof of guilt, how 
important it is to maintain the rule that no man shall be condemned 


* Wade’s Confession; Ferguson MS.; Axe Papers, Harl. MS. 6845; Oldmixon, 
701, 702. Oldmixon, who was then a boy, lived very near the scene-of these 
events. 

+ London Gazette, June 18, 1685; Lords’ and Commons’ Journals, June 13 and 
15; Dutch Despatch,16-26, 


‘ay 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 875 


‘to death without an opportunity of defending himself, and how 
easily and speedily breaches in great principles, when once made, 
are widened, we shall probably be disposed to think that the course 
t.ken by the Parliament was open to some objection Neither 
House had before it anything which even so corrupt a judge as 
Jeffreys could have directed a jury to consider as proof of Mon 
mouth’s crime. The messengers examined by the Commons were 
‘not on oath, and might therefore have related mere fictions without 
incurring the penalties of perjury The Lords, who might have ad 
ministered an oath, appeared not to have examiaed any witness, and 
to have had no evidence before them except the letter of the Mayor of 
Lyme, which, in the eye of the law, was no evidence at all  Ex- 
treme danger, it is true, justifies extreme remedies. But the Act of 
Attainder was a remedy which could not operate till all danger was 
over, and which would become superfluous at the very moment at 
which it ceased to be null. While Monmouth was in arms it was 
impossible to execute him. If he should be vanquished and taken, 
there would be no hazard and no difficulty in trying him It was af. 
terwards remembered as a curious circumstance that, among zealous 
Tories who went up with the bill from the House of Commons to 
the bar of the Lords, was Sir John Fenwick, member for Northum. . 
berland This gentleman, afew years later, had occasion to recon- 
sider the whole subject, and then came to the conclusion that acts of 
attainder are altogether unjustifiable. * 

_ The Parliament gave other proofs of loyalty in this hour of peril. 
The Commons authorised the King to raise an extraordinary sum of 
four hundred thousand pounds for his present necessities, and, that he 
might have no difficulty in finding the money, proceeded to devise 
new imposts. Thescheme of taxing houses lately built in the capital 
was revived and strenuously supported by the country gentlemen. 
It was resolved not only that such houses should be taxed, but that 
a bill should be brought in prohibiting the laying of any new founda- 
tions within the bills of mortality. The resolution, however, was 
not carried into effect. Powerful men who had land in the suburbs, 
and who hoped to see new streets and squares rise 01 their estates, 
exerted all their influence against the project. It was found that to 
adjust the details would be a work of time; and the King’s wants 
Were so pressing that he thought it necessary to quicken the move- 

_Ments of the House by a gentle exhortation to speed. The plan 
of taxing buildings was therefore relinquished; and new dutics 
mposed for a term of five years on foreign silks, linens, and 
spirits, + 


> aa 


‘ * Oldmixon is wrong in saying that Fenwick carried up the bill. It was 
carried up, as oS Ba from the Journals, by Lord Ancram. See Delamere’s 
Observations on the Attainder of the Late Duke of Monmouth. 

t Commons’ Journals of June 17, 18, and 19, 1685; Reresby’s Memoirs. 


Ve 


376 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


The Tories of the Lower House proceeded ‘to introduce what thy 
called a bill for the preservation of the King’s person and govern. 
ment. They proposed that it should be high treason to say that 
Monmouth was legitimate, to utter any words tending to bring the 
person or government of the sovereign into hatred or contempt, or 
to make any motion in Parliament for changing the order of succes- 


sion. Some of these provisions excited general disgust and alarm. - 


The Whigs, few and weak as they were, attempted to rally, and 
found themselves reinforced by a considerable number of moderate 
and sensible Cavaliers. Words, it was said, may easily be misunder- 
stood by a dull man. They may be easily misconstrued by a knave. 
What was spoken metaphorically may be apprehended literally. 
What was spoken ludicrously may be apprehended seriously. A 
particle, a tense, a mood, an emphasis, may make the whole differ- 
ence between guilt and innocence. The Saviour of mankind him- 
self, in whose blameless life malice could find no acts to impeach, 
had been called in question for words spoken. False witnesses had 
suppressed a syllable which would have made it clear that those 
words were figurative, and had thus furnished the Sanhedrim with a 
pretext under which the foulest of all judicial murders had been per- 
petrated. With such an example on record, who could affirm that, 
if mere talk were made a substantive treason, the most loyal subject 
would be safe? These arguments produced so great an effect that 
in the committee amendments were introduced which greatly miti- 
gated the severity of the bill. But the clause which made it high 
treason in a member of Parliament to propose the exclusion of 4 
prince of the blood seems to have raised no debate, and was retained. 
That clause was indeed altogether unimportant, except as a proof of 
the ignorance and inexperience of the hotheaded Royalists who 
thronged the House of Commons. Had they learned the first rudi- 
ments of legislation, they would have known that the enactment to 
which they attached so much value would be superfluous while the 
Parliament was disposed to maintain the order of succession, and 
would be repealed as soon as there was a Parliament bent on chang- 
ing the order of succession.* 

The bill, as amended, was passed and carried up to the Lords, but 
did not become law. The King had obtained from the Parliament 
all the pecuniary assistance that he could expect; and he conceived 


that, while rebellion was actually raging, the loyal nobility and gen-- 


try would be of more use in their counties than at Westminster. He 
therefore hurried their deliberations to a close, and, on the second 
of July, dismissed them. On the same day the royal assent was 


* Commons’ Journals, June 19, 29, 1685; Lord Lonsdale’s Memoirs, 8, 9; Bur- 
net, i. 639. The bill, as amended by the committee, will be found in Mr. Fox’s 
historical work. Appendix iii. If Burnet’s account be correct, the offences 
which, by the amended bill were made punishable only with civil incapacities, 
were, by the original bill, made capital. 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 377 


given to a law reviving that censorship of the press which had termi- 
nated in 1679. ‘This object was affected by a few words at the end 
of a miscellaneous statute which continued several expiring acts 
The courtiers did not think that they had gained a triumph. The 
Whigs did not utter a murmur. Neither in the Lords nor in the 
Commons was there any division, or even, as far as can be !earned, 
any debate on a question which would, in our age, convulse the 
whole frame of society. In truth, the change was slight and almost 
imperceptible; for, since the detection of the Rye House plot, the 
liberty of unlicensed printing had existed only in name. During 
many months scarcely any Whig pamphlet had been published ex- 
cept by stealth; and by stealth such pamphlets might be pubiished 
still. 

The Houses then rose. ‘They were not prorogued, but only ad: 
journed, in order that, when they should reassemble, they might 
take up their business in the exact state in which they had left it.+ 

While the Parliament was devising sharp laws against Monmouth 
and his partisans, he found at Taunton a. reception which might well 
encourage him to hope that his‘enterprise would have a prosperous 
issue. ‘Taunton, like most other towns in the south of England, 
was, in that age, more important ihan at present. Those towns 
have not indeed declined. On the contrary, they are, with very few 
exceptions, larger and richer, better built and better peopled, than in 
the seventeenth century. But, though they have positively ad- 
vanced, they have relatively gone back. They have been far out- 
stripped in wealth and population by the great manufacturing and 
commercial cities of the north, cities which, in the time of the Stu- 
arts, were but beginning to be known as seats of industry. When 
Monmouth marched into Taunton it was an eminently prosperous 
place. Its markets were plentifully supplied. It was.a celebrated 
Seat of the woollen manufacture. ‘The people boasted that they lived 
in a land flowing with milk and honey. Nor was this language held 
only by partial natives; for every stranger who climbed the graceful 
tower of St. Mary Magdalene owned that he saw beneath him the 
most fertile of English valleys. It was a country rich with orchards 
and green pastures, among which were scattered, in gay abundance, 
manor houses, cottages, and village spires. The townsmen had long 
leaned towards Presbyterian divinity and Whig politics. In the 

eat civil war Taunton had, through all vicissitudes, adhered to the 

arliament, had been twice closely besieged by Goring, and had been 
twice defended with heroic valour by Robert Blake, afterwards the 
tenowned Admiral of the Commonwealth. Whole streets had been 
burned down by the mortars and grenades of the Cavaliers | Food 
had been so scarce that the resolute governor had announced his in- 


——— 


eis cei pce ger es eo ar aa, 


*1 Jac. I. c. 7; Lords’ Journals, July 2, 1685. 
+t Lords’ and Commons’ Journals, July %, 16865. 


f 
ao 
ie 


378 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


tention of putting the garrison on rations of horse flesh. But the 
spirit of the town had never been subdued either by fire or by 
hunger.* 

The Restoration had produced no effect on the temper of the 
Taunton men. They had still continued to celebrate the anniversary 
of the happy day on which the siege laid to their town by the royal 
army had been raised; and their stubborn attachment to the old 
cause had excited so much fear and resentment at Whitehall that, by 
a royal order, their moat had been filled up, and their wall demol- 
ished to the foundation.+ ‘The puritanical spirit had been kept up 
to the height among them by the precepts and example of one of the — 
most celebrated of the dissenting clergy, Joseph Alleine. Alleine was 
the author of a tract, entitled, An Alarm to the Unconverted, which 
is still popular both in England and in America. From the gaol te 
which he was consigned by the victorious Cavaliers, he addressed to 
his loving friends a! Taunton many epistles breathing the spirit of a 
truly heroic piety. His frame soon sank under the effects of study, 
toil, and persecution: but his memory was long cherished with ex- 
ceeding love and reverence by those whom he had exhorted and 
catechised.t 

The children of the men who, forty years before, had manned the 
ramparts of Taunton against the Royalists, now welcomed Mon- 
mouth with transports of joy and affection. Every door and window 
was adorned with wreaths of flowers. No man appeared in the 
streets without wearing in his hat a green bough, the badge of the 
popular cause. Damsels of the best families in the town wove col. 
ours for the insurgents. One flag in particular was embroidered gor- 
geously with emblems of royal dignity, and was offered to Mon- 
mouth by a train of young girls. He received the gift with the 
winning courtesy which distinguished him. The lady who headed 
the procession presented him also with a small Bible of great price. 
He took it with a show of reverence. ‘‘I come,” he said, ‘‘to de- 
fend the truths contained in this book, and to seal them, if it must — 
be so, with my blood.” § 

But, while Monmouth enjoyed the applause of the multilude, he 
could not but perceive, with concern and apprehension, that the 
higher classes were, with scarcely an exception, hostile to his under: 
taking, and that no rising had taken place except in the counties 
where he had himself appeared. He had been assured by agents, 
who professed to have derived their information from Wildman, 
that the whole Whig aristocracy was eager to take arms. Neverthe- 
jess more than a week had now elapsed since the blue standard had 


* Savage’s edition of Toulmin’s History of Taunton. 

+ Sprat’s true Account; Toulmin’s History of Taunton. 

t Life and Death of Joseph Alleine, 1672; Nonconformists’ Memorial. 

§ Harl. MS, 7006; Oldmixon, 702; Eachard, iii. 763, ~ 


ieee 
: 


4 
het 


a 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 379 


» 


been set up at Lyme. Day labourers, small farmers, shopkeepers, 
apprentices, dissenting preachers, had flocked to the rebel camp: but 


not a single peer, baronet, or knight, not a single member of the 


House of Commons, and scarcely any esquire of sufficient note to 
have ever been in the commission of the peace, had joined the in- 
vaders. Ferguson, who, ever since the death of Charles, had been 
Monmouth’s evil angel, had a suggestion ready. The Duke had put 
himself into a false position by declining the royal title. Had he 
declared himself sovereign of England, his cause would have worn 
‘a show of legality. At present it was impossible to reconcile his 
‘Declaration with the principles of the constitution. It was clear 
that either Monmouth or his uncle was rightful King. Monmouth 
did not venture to pronounce himself the rightful King, and yet de- 
nied that his uncle was so. Those who fought for James fought for 
the only person who ventured to claim the throne, and were there- 
fore clearly in their duty, according to the laws of the realm. Those 
who fought for Monmouth fought for some unknown polity, which 
was to be set up by a convention not yet in existence. None could 


_ wonder that men of high rank and ample fortune stood aloof from 


* 
- 


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a 


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. 


Ag 
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an enterprise which threatened with destruction that system in the 
permanence of which they were deeply interested. If the Duke 
would assert his legitimacy and assume the crown, he would at once 
remove this objection. The question would cease to be a question 
between the old constitution and a new constitution. It would be 
merely a question of hereditary right between two princes. 

On such grounds as these Ferguson, almost immediately after the 
landing, had earnestly pressed the Duke to proclaim himself King, 
and Grey had seconded Ferguson. Monmouth had been very will- 
ing to take this advice; but Wade and other republicans had been 
‘eiractory; and their chief, with his usual pliability, had yielded to 
their arguments. At Taunton the subject was revived. Monmouth 
talked in private with the dissentients, assured them that he saw no 
other way of obtaining the support of any portion of the aristocracy, 
and succeeded in extorting their reluctant consent. On the morning 
of the twentieth of June he was proclaimed in the market place of 
‘Taunton. His followers repeated his new title with affectionate de- 
light. But, as some confusion might have arisen if he had been 
called King James the Second, they commonly used the strange ap- 
pellation of King Monmouth; and by this name their unhappy 
favorite was often mentioned in the western counties, within the 
memory of persons still living.* 

Within twenty-four hours after he had assumed the regal title, he 
put forth several proclamations headed with his sign manual. By 


* Wade’s Confession; Goodenough’s Confession, Harl. MS. 1152; Oldmixon, 
» Ferguson’s denial is quite undeserving of credit. A copy of the procla- 
mation is in the Harl. MS. 7006. 


380 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


one of these he set aprice on the head of hisrival. Another declareé 
the Parliament then sitting at Westminster an unlawful assemblage, 

and commanded the members to disperse. A third forbade the 

people to pay taxes to the usurper. A fourth pronounced Albe- 

marle a traitor.* 

Albemarle transmitted these proclamations to London merely es 
specimens of folly and impertinence. They produced no effect, ex- 
cept wonder and contempt; nor had Monmouth any reason to think 
that the assumption of royalty had improved his position. Only a 
week had elapsed since he had solemnly bound himself not to take 
the crown till a free Parliament should have geknowledged his 
rights. By breaking that engagement he had incurred the imputa- 
tion of levity, if not of perfidy. The class which he had hoped to 
conciliate still stood aloof The reasons which prevented the great 
Whig lords and gentlemen from recognizing him as their King were 
at least as strong as those which had prevented them from rallying 
around him as their Captain General. They disliked indeed the 
person, the religion, and the politics of James. But James was no 
longer young. His eldest daughter was justly popular She was 
attached to the reformed faith. She was married to a prince who 
was the hereditary chief of the Protestants of the Continent, to a 
prince who had been bred in a republic, and whose sentiments were. 
supposed to be such as became a constitutional King. Was it wise 
to incur the horrors of civil war, for the mere chance of being able 
to effect immediately what nature would, without bloodshed, with- 
out any Violation of law, effect, in all probability, before many years 
should have expired ? Perhaps there might be reasons for pulling 
down James. But what reason could be given for setting up Mon- 
mouth? To exclude a prince from the throne on account of unfitness 
was a course agrecable to Whig principles. But on no principle 
could it be proper to exclude rightful heirs, who were admitted to he, 
not only blameless, bnt eminently qualified for the highest. public 
trust. That Monmouth was legitimate, nay, that he thought him- 
self legitimate, intelligent men could not believe. He was therefore 
not merely an usurper, but an usurper of the worst sort, an impostor 
If he made out any semblance of a case, he could do so only by 
means of forgery and perjury. All honest and sensible persons were 
unwilling to see a fraud which, if practised to obtain an estate, would 
have been punished with the scourge and the pillory, rewarded with 
the English crown. To the old nobility of the realm it seemed in- 
supportable that the bastard of Lucy Walters should be set up high 
above the lawful descendants of the Fitzalans and De Veres. Those 
who were capable of looking forward must have seen that, if Mon- 
mouth should succeed in overpowering the existing government, 


* Copies of the last three proclamations are in the British Museum; Harl MS. 
“006. The first I have never seen; but it is mentioned by Wade. 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 981 — 


there would still remain a war between him and the House of Orange, 
a war which might last longer and produce more misery than the war 
of the Roses, a war which might probably break up the Protestants 
of Europe, into hostile parties, might arm England and Holland 
against each other, and might make both those countries an easy 
rey to France. ‘The opinion, therefore, of almost all the leading 
higs seems to have been that Monmouth’s enterprise could not fail 
to end in some great disaster to the nation, but that, on the whole, 
his defeat would be a less disaster than his victory. 

It was not only by the inaction of the Whig aristocracy that the in- 
yaders were disappointed. The wealth and power of London had 
sufficed in the preceding generation, and might again suffice, to turn 
the scale in a civil conflict. The Londoners had formerly given 
many proofs of their hatred of Popery and of their affection for the 
Protestant Duke. He had too readily believed that, as soon as hé 
landed, there would be a rising in the capital. But, though advices 

_ came down to him that many thousands of the citizens had been en- 
rolled as volunteers for the good cause, nothing was done. The plain 
truth was that the agitators who had urged him to invade England, 
who had promised to rise on the first signal, and who had perhaps 
imagined, while the danger was remote, that they should have the 
_ courage to keep their promise, lost heart when the critical time drew 
near. Wildman’s fright was such that he seemed to have lost his 
understanding. The craven Danvers at first excused his inaction by 
saying that he would not take up arms till Monmouth was pro- 
claimed King, and when Monmouth had been proclaimed King, 
turned round and declared that good republicans were absolved from 
all engagements to a leader who had so shamefully broken faith. 
In every age the vilest specimens of human nature are to be found 
among demagogues.* 
__On the day following that on which Monmouth had assumed the regal 
title he marched from Taunton to Bridgewater. His own spirits, it 
Was remarked, were not high. The acclamations of the devoted 
thousands who surrounded him wherever he turned could not dispel 
_ the gloom which sate on his brow. Those who had seen him during 
_ his progress through Somersetshire five years before could not now 
observe without pity the traces of distress and anxiety on those soft 
and pleasing features which had won so many hearts.+ 
_ Ferguson was in a very different temper. With this man’s knav- 
ery was strangely mingled an eccentric vanity which resembled 
Madness. The thought that he had raised a rebellion.and bestowed 
a crown had turned his head. He swaggered about, brandishing his 
naked sword, and crying to the crowd of spectators who had_as- 
_ sembled to see the army march out of Taunton, ‘‘Lookat me! You 


Ss 


ne * Grey’s Narrative; Ferguson’s MS., Eachard, iii. 754. 
by t Persecutiors Exposed, by John Whiting. 


3 M, E. i.—18 


882 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. | 


have heard of me. Iam Ferguson, the famous Ferguson, the Fer- 
uson for whose head so many hundred pounds have been offered.” 
nd this man, at once unprincipled and brainsick, had in his keep- 
Ang the understanding and the conscience of the unhappy Mon- 
mouth.* 

Bridgewater was one of the few towns which still had some Whig 
magistrates. 'The Mayor and Aldermen came in their robes to wel- 
come the Duke, walked before him in procession to the high cross, 
and there proclaimed him King. His troops found excellent quar- 
ters, and were furnished with necessaries at little or no cost by the 
people of the town and neighbourhood. He took up his residence in 
the Castle, a building which had been honoured by several royal 
visits. In the Castle Field his army was encamped. It now consist- 
ed of about six thousand men, and might easily have been increased 
to double the number, but for the want of arms. The Duke had 
brought with him from the Continent but a scanty supply of pikes 
and muskets. Many of his followers had, therefore, no other weap- 
ons than such as could be fashioned out of the tools which they had 
used in husbandry or mining. Of these rude implements of war the 
most formidable was made by fastening the blade of a scythe erect 
ona strong pole.t+ The tithing men of the country round Taunton 
and Bridgesvater received orders to search everywhere for scythes 
and to bring all that could be found to the camp. It was impossible, 
however, even with the help of these contrivances, to supply the 
ee! ; and great numbers who were desirous to enlist were sent 
away. . 

The foot were divided into six regiments. Many of the men had 
been in the militia, and still wore their uniforms, red and yellow. 
The cavalry were about a thousand in number; but most of them had 
only large colts, such as were then bred in great herds on the marshes 
of Somersetshire for the purpose of supplying London with coach 
horses and cart horses. These animals were so far from being fit for 
any military purpose that they had not yet learned to obey the bridle, 
and became ungovernable as soon as they heard a gun fired or a drum 
beaten. A small body guard of forty young men, well armed, and 
mounted at their own charge, attended Monmouth. The people of 
Bridgewater, who were enriched by a thriving coast trade, furnished 
him with a small sum of money.§ . 

All this time the forces of the government were fast assembling. 
On the west of the rebel army, Albemarle still kept together a large 
body of Devonshire militia. On the east, the trainbands of Wiltshire 
had mustered under the command of Thomas Herbert, Earl of Pem- 


* Harl. MS. 6845. 

+ One of these weapons may still be seen in the Tower. 
A ¢ Grey’s Narrative; Paschall’s Narrative in the Appendix to Heywood’s Vin. 
dication. 

§ Oldmixon, 702, 


- HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 888 
Law BS 
_ broke. On the north-east, Henry Somerset, Duke of Beaufort, was 
-inarms. The power of Beaufort bore some faint reseinblance to that 
of the great barons of the fifteenth century. He was President of 
Wales and Lord Lieutenant of four English counties. His official 
tours through the extensive region in which he represented the maj- 
_ esty of the throne were scarcely inferior in pomp to royal progresses. 
His household at Badminton was regulated after the fashion of an 
earlier generation. The land to a great extent round his pleasure 
ounds was in his own hands; and the labourers who cultivated it 
ormed part of his family. Nine tables were every day spread under 
_his roof for two hundred persons. A crowd of gentlemen and pages 
were under the orders of the steward. A whole troop of cavalry 
obeyed the master of the horse. The fame of the kitchen, the cellar, 
the kennel, and the stables was spread over all England. The gen- 
try, many miles round, were proud of the magnificence of their great 
neighbour, and were at the same time charmed by his affability and 
good nature. He was a zealous Cavalier of the old school. At this 
crisis, therefore, he used his whole influence and authority in support 
of the crown, and occupied Bristol with the trainbands of Glouces- 
tershire, who seem to have been better disciplined than most other 
troops of that description.* 
In the counties more remote from Somersetshire the supporters of 
_ the throne were on the alert. The militia of Sussex began to march 
westward, under the command of Richard, Lord Lumley, who, 
though he had lately been converted from the Roman Catholic reli- 
ae was still firm in his allegiance to a Roman Catholic King. 
ames Bertie, Earl of Abingdon, called out the array of Oxfordshire. 
John Fell, Bishop of Oxford, who was also Dean of Christchurch, 
_ summoned the undergraduates of his University to take arms for the 
_ crown. The gownsmen crowded to give in their names. Christ- 
_ church alone furnished near a hundred pikemen and musketeers. 
Young noblemen and gentlemen commoners acted as officers; and 
the eldest son of the Lord Lieutenant was Colonel.+ 
But it was chiefly on the regular troops that the King relied. 
_ Churchill had been sent westward with the Blues; and Feversham 
was following with all the forces that could be spared from the neigh- 
bourhood of London. A courier had started for Holland with a let- 
ter directing Skelton instantly to request that the three English regi- 
_ ments in the Dutch service might be sent to the Thames. When 
__ the request was made, the party hostile to the House of Orange, head- 
ed by the deputies of Amsterdam, again tried to cause delay. But 
the energy of William, who had almost as much at stake as James, 
F _ 


_ _*North’s Life of Guildford. 132. Accounts of Beaufort’s progress aks te 
_ Wales and the neighbouring counties are in the London Gazettes of July 1684. 
Letter of Beaufort to Clarendon, June 19, 1685. 


___,t Bishop Fell to Clarendon, June 20; Abingdon to Clarendon, June 20, 25, 26, 
_ 1685; Lansdowne MS. 846. 


384 as HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


and who saw Monmouth’s progress with serious uneasiness, bore 
down opposition; and in a few days the troops sailed.* The three — 
Scotch regiments were already in England. They had arrived at 
Gravesend in excellent condition, and James had reviewed them on 
Blackheath. He repeatedly declared to the Dutch Ambassador that 
he had never in his life seen finer or better disciplined soldiers, and 
expressed the warmest gratitude to the Prince of Orange and the 
States for so valuable and seasonable a reinforcement. This satis- 
faction, however, was not unmixed. LExcellently as the men went 
through their drill, they were not untainted with Dutch politics and 
Dutch divinity. One of them was shot and another flogged for drink- 
ing the Duke of Monmouth’s health. It was therefore not thought 
advisable to place them in the post of danger. They were kept in 
the neighbourhood of London till the end of the campaign. But 
their arrival enabled the King to send to the West some infantry 
which would otherwise have been wanted in the capital.t+ 

While the government was thus preparing for a conflict with the 
rebels in the field, precautions of a different kind were not neglected. 
In London alone two hundred of those persons who were thought 
most likely to be at the head of a Whig movement were arrested. 
Among the prisoners were some merchants of great note.. Every man — 
who was obnoxious to the Court went in fear. A general gloom over- 
hung the capital. Business languished on the Exchange; and the 
theatres were so generally deserted that a new opera, written by Dry- 
den, and set off by decorations of unprecedented magnificence, was 
withdrawn, because the receipts would not cover the expenses of the 
‘performance.{ The magistrates and clergy were everywhere active. 
The Dissenters were everywhere closely observed. In Cheshire and 
Shropshire a fierce persecution raged; in Northamptonshire arrests 
were numerous; and the gaol of Oxford was crowded with prisoners. 
No Puritan divine, however moderate his opinions, however guarded 
his conduct, could feel any confidence that he should not be torn 
from his family and flung into a dungeon.§ 

Meanwhile Monmouth advanced from Bridgewater harassed 
through the whole march by Churchill, who appears to have done 
all that, with a handful of men, it was possible for a brave and skil- 
ful officer to effect. The rebel army, much annoyed, both by the 
enemy and by a heavy fall of rain, halted in the evening of the twen-_ 
ty-second of June at Glastonbury. The houses of the little town did 
not afford shelter for so large a force. Some of the troops were 
therefore quartered in the churches, and others lighted their fires 


* Avaux, July 5-15, 6-16, 1685. ; 

+ Van Citters, 77°75 July 3-18, 21-81, 1685; Avaux Neg. July 5-15; London 
Gazette, July 6. : 

¢ Barillon, July 6--16, 1685; Scott’s preface to Albion and Albanius. 

§ Abingdon to Clarendon, June 29, 1685; Life of Philip Henry, by Bates. 


.. “among the venerable ruins of the Abbey, once the wealthiest religious 
house in our island. From Glastonbury the Duke marched to Wells, 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 885 


and from Wells to Shepton Mallet.* 

Hitherto he seems to have wandered from place to place with no 
other object than that of collecting troops. It was now necessary for 
him to form some plan of military operations. His first scheme was 


‘to seize Bristol. Many of the chief inhabitants of that important 


place were Whigs. One of the ramifications of the Whig plot had ex- 
tended thither. The garrison consisted only of the Gloucester train- 
bands. If Beaufort and his rustic followers could be overpowered 
before the regular troops arrived, the rebels would at once find them- 
selves possessed of ample pecuniary resources; the credit of Mon- 
mouth’s arms would be raised; and his friends throughout the king- 


dom would be encouraged to declare themselves. Bristol had forti- 


fications which, on the north of the Avon towards Gloucestershire, 
were weak, but on the south towards Somersetshire were much 
stronger. It was therefore determined that the attack should be made 


on the Gloucestershire side. But for this purpose it was necessary 
_ to take a circuitous route, and to cross the Avon at Keynsham. The 


bridge at Keynsham had been partly demolished by the militia, and 
was at present impassable. A detachment was therefore sent forward 


_ to make the necessary repairs. The other troops followed more 


_ slowly, and on the evening of the twenty-fourth of June halted for 


one 


repose at Pensford. At Pensford they were only five miles from the 


Somersetshire side of Bristol; but the Gloucestershire side, which 


could be reached only by going round through Keynsham, was distant 


- along day’s march.+ 


That night was one of great tumult and expectation in Bristol. 


The partisans of Monmouth knew that he was almost within sight of 


_ their city, and imagined that he would be among them before day- 


t 


break. About an hour after sunset a merchantman lying at the 
quay took fire. Such an occurrence, in a port crowded with ship- 
ping, could not but excite great alarm. The whole river was in com- 
motion. The streets were crowded. Seditious cries were heard 


_ amidst the darkness and confusion. It was afterwards asserted, both 
_ by Whigs and by Tories, that the fire had been kindled by the friends 


of Monmouth, in the hope that the trainbands would be busied in pre- 


_ venting the conflagration from spreading, and that in the meantime the 


rebel army would make a bold push, and would enter the city on the 
Somersetshire side. If such was the design of the incendiaries, 
1t completely failed. Beaufort, instead of sending his men to the 
quay, kept them all night drawn up under arms round the beautiful 


_ church of Saint Mary Redcliff, on the south of the Avon. He would 


* London Gazette, June 22, and June 25, 1685; Wade’s Confession; Oldmixon, 
703; Harl. MS. 6845. 
+ Wade's Confession. 


386 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


see Bristol burnt down, he said, nay, he would burn it down himself, 
rather than that it should be occupied by traitors. He was able, with 
the help of some regular cavalry which had joined him from Chippen- 
ham a few hours before, to prevent an insurrection. It might per- 
haps have been beyond his power at once to overawe the malecon- 
tents within the walls and to repel an attack from without: but no 
such attack was made. The fire, which caused so much commo- 
tion at Bristol, was distinctly seen at Pensford. Monmouth, how- 
ever, did not think it expedient to change his plan. He remained 
quiet till sunrise, and then marched to Keynsham. There he found 
the bridge repaired. He determined to let his army rest during the 
afternoon, and, as soon as night came, to proceed to Bristol.* 

But it was too late. The King’s forces were now near at hand. 
Colonel Oglethorpe, at the head of about a hundred men of the Life 
Guards, dashed into Keynsham, scattered two troops of rebel horse 
which ventured to oppose him, and retired after inflicting much in- 
jury and suffering little. In these circumstances it was thought neces- 
Bary to relinquish the design on Bristol.+ 

ut what was to be done? Several schemes were proposed and 
discussed. It was suggested that Monmouth might hasten to Glou- 
cester, might cross the Severn there, might break down the bridge 
behind him, and, with his right flank protected by the river, might 
march through Worcestershire into Shropshire and Cheshire. He 
had formerly made a progress through those counties, and had been 
received there with as much enthusiasm as in Somersetshire and 
Devonshire. His presence might revive the zeal of his old friends; 
and his army might in a few te: be swollen to double its present 
numbers. 

On full consideration, however, it appeared that this plan, though 
specious, was impracticable. The rebels were ill shod for such work 
as they had lately undergone, and were exhausted by toiling, day 
after day, through deep mud_under heavy rain. Harassed and im- 
peded as they would be at every stag€ by the enemy’s cavalry, they 
could not hope to reach Gloucester without being overtaken by the 
main body of the royal troops, and forced to a general action under 
every disadvantage. 

Then it was proposed to enter Wiltshire. Persons who professed 
to know that county well assured the Duke that he would be joined 
there by such strong reinforcements as would make it safe for him 
to give battle. t 

He took this advice, and turned towards Wiltshire. He first sum- 
moned Bath. But Bath was strongly garrisoned for the King; and 


* Wade's Confession; Oldmixon, 703; Harl. MS. 6845; Charge of Jeffreys to the 
grand jury of Bristol, Sept. 21, 1685. 

+ London Gazette, June 29, 1685; Wade’s Confession. 

+ Wade’s Confession. og 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 387 


_ Feversham was fast approaching. The rebels, therefore, made no at 
~ tempt on the walls, but hastened to Philip’s Norton, where they 
" halted on the evening of the twenty-sixth of June. 
Feversham followed them thither. Early on the morning of the 
twenty-seventh they were alarmed by tidings that he was close at 
hand. They got into order, and lined the hedges leading to the 
town. 

The advanced guard of the royal army soon appeared. It con- 
sisted of about five hundred men, commanded by the Duke of Graf- 
ton, a youth of bold spirit and rough manners, who was probably 
eager to show that he had no share in the disloyal schemes of his 
half brother. Grafton soon found himself in a deep lane with fences 
on both sides of him, from which a galling fire of musketry was kept 

up. Still he pushed boldly on till he came to the entrance of Pailip’s 
Sorton. There his way was crossed by a barricade, from which a 
third fire met him full in front. His men now lost heart, and made 
the best of their way back. Before they got out of the lane more 
than a hundred of them had been killed or wounded. Grafton’s re- 
treat was intercepted by some of the rebel cavalry: but he cut his 
way gallantly through them, and came off safe.* 
he advanced guard, thus repulsed, fell back on the main body of 
the royal forces. ‘The two armies were now face to face; and a few 
shots were exchanged that did little or no execution. Neither side 
was impatient to come to action. Feversham did not wish to fight 
till his artillery came up, and fell back to Bradford. Monmouth, as 
soon as the night closed in, quitted his position, marched southward, 
and by daybreak arrived at Frome, where he hoped to find reinforce- 

“ments. 

- Frome was as zealous in his cause as either Taunton or Bridge- 
water, but could do nothing to serve him. There had been a rising 
afew days before; and Monmouth’s Declaration had been posted up 
in the market place. But the news of this movement had been car- 
ried to the Earl of Pembroke, who lay at no great distance with the 
Wiltshire militia. He had instantly marched to Frome, had routed a 
mob of rustics who, with scythes and pitchforks, attempted to op- 

ose him, had entered the town and had disarmed the inhabitants. 

0 weapons, therefore, were left there; nor was Monmouth able to 

_ furnish any.+ 

The rebel army was in evil case. The march of the preceding 
night had been wearisome. The rain had fallen in torrents; and the 
roads had become mere quagmires. Nothing was heard of the 
promised succours from Wiltshire. One messenger brought news that 
Argyle’s forces had been dispersed in Scotland. Another reported 


*London Gazette, July 2, 1685; Barillon, July 6-16; eee Confession. 
+London Gazette, June 29, i685; Van Citters, jap ie 


Pt 


888 _ HISTORY OF ENGLAND. — 


that Feversham, having been joined by his artillery, was about to ad- 


vance. Monmouth understood war too well not to know that his follow- 
ers, With all their courage and all their zeal, were no match for regular 
soldiers. He had till lately flattered himself with the hope that some 
of those regiments which he had formerly commanded would pass 
over to his standard: but that hope he was now compelled to relin- 
quish. His heart failed him. He could scarcely muster firmness 
enough to give orders. In his misery he complained bitterly of the 
evil counsellors who had induced him to quit his happy retreat in 
Brabant. Against Wildman in particular he broke forth into violent 
- imprecations.* And now an ignominious thought rose in his weak 
and agitated mind. He would leave to the mercy of the govern- 
ment the thousands who had, at his call and for his sake, abandoned 
their quiet fields and dwellings. He would steal away with his chief 
officers, would gain some seaport before his flight was suspected, 
would escape to the Continent, and would forget his ambition and 
‘his shame in the arms of Lady Wentworth. He seriously discussed 
this scheme with his leading advisers. Some of them, trembling for 
their necks, Jistened to it with approbation; but Grey, who, by the 
admission of his detractors, was intrepid everywhere except where 
swords were clashing and guns going off around him, opposed 
the dastardly proposition with great ardour, and implored the Duke 
to face every danger rather than requite with ingratitude and treach- 
ery the devoted attachment of the Western. peasantry.+ 

The scheme of flight was abandoned: but it was not now easy to 
form any plan for a campaign. To advance towards London would 
have been madness; for the road lay right across Salisbury Plain; 
and on that vast open space regular troops, and above all regular 
cavalry, would have acted with every advantage against undisciplined 
men. At this juncture a report reached the camp that the rustics 
of the marshes near Axbridge had risen in defence of the Protestant 
religion, had armed themselves with flails, bludgeons, and pitchforks, 
and were assembling by thousands at Bridgewater. Monmouth de- 
Piet: to return thither, and to strengthen himself with these new 
allies. . 

The rebels accordingly proceeded to Wells, and arrived there in 
no amiable temper. They were, with few exceptions, hostile to 
Prelacy; and they showed their hostility in a way very little to their 


honour. They not only tore the lead from the roof of the magnifi- ~ 


cent Cathedral to make bullets, an act for which they might fairly 
plead the necessities of war, but wantonly defaced the ornaments of 
the building. Grey with difficulty preserved the altar from the in- 


sults of some ruffians who wished to carouse round it, by taking his 


stand before it with his sword drawn.§ 


———— eee _ — —— = oe ee ee Se 


* Harl. MS. 6845; Wade’s Confession. 
+ Wade’s Confession; Eachard, iii. 766. t Wade’s Confession. 
§ London Gazette, July 6, 1685; Van Citters, July 3-13; Oldmixon, 703 


¥ d 
a 
" 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 389 


On Thursday, the second of July, Monmouth again entered Bridge- 

water, in circumstances far less cheering than those in which he had 

“marched thence ten days before. The reinforcement which he found 

there was inconsiderable. The royal army was close upon him. At 
‘one moment he thought of fortifying the town; and hundreds of 
labourers were summoned to dig trenches and throw up mounds, 
Then his mind recurred to the plan of marching into Cheshire, a plan 

which he had rejected as impracticable when he was at Keynsham, 
and which assuredly was not more practicable now that he was at 
Bridgewater. * 

While he was thus wavering between projects equally hopeless, 

the King’s forces came in sight. They consisted of about two thou- 
sand five hundred regular troops, and of about fifteen hundred of 
the Wiltshire militia. Early on the morning of Sunday, the fifth of 
July, they left Somerton, and pitched their tents that day about 
three miles from Bridgewater, on the plain of Sedgemoor. 
Dr. Peter Mew, Bishop of Winchester, accompanied them. This 
Se had in his youth borne arms for Charles the First against the 
- Parliament. Neither his years nor his profession had wholly extin- 
_ guished his martial ardour; and he probably thought that the ap- 
pearance of a father of the Protestant Church in the King’s camp 
_ might confirm the loyalty of some honest men who were wavering 
__ between their horror of Popery and their horror of rebellion. 

The steeple of the parish church of Bridgewater is said to be the 
loftiest of Somersetshire, and commands a wide view over the sur- 
rounding country. Monmouth, accompanied by some of his officers, 

' went up to the top of the square tower from which the spire ascends, 
and observed through a telescope the position of theenemy. Beneath 
him lay a flat expanse, now rich with cornfields and apple trees, but 
_ then, as its name imports, for the most part a dreary morass. When 
the rains were heavy, and the Parret and its tributary streams rose 
above their banks, this tract was often flooded. It was indeed an 
ciently part of that great swamp which is renowned in our early 
chronicles as having arrested the progress of two successive races of 
invaders, which long protected the Celts against the aggressions of 
the Kings of Wessex, and which sheltered Alfred from the pursuit 
ofthe Danes. In those remote times this region could be traversed 
only in boats. It was a vast pool, wherein were scattered many 
islets of shifting and treacherous soil, overhung with rank jungle, 
“and swarming with deer and wild swine. Even in the days of the 
- Tudors, the traveller whose journey lay from Ilchester to Bridge- 
water was forced to make a circuit of several miles in order to avoid 
the waters. When Monmouth looked upon Sedgemoor, it had been 
partially reclaimed by art, and was intersected by many deep and 
_ wide trenches which, in that country, are called rhines. In the 


a * Wade’s Confession. 


390 oe HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


midst of the moor rose, clustering round the towers of churches, a 
few villages of which the names seem to indicate that ner once were 
surrounded by waves. In one of these villages, called Weston Zoy- 
land, the royal cavalry lay; and Feversham had fixed his head- 
quarters there. Many persons still living have seen the daughter of 
the servant girl who waited on him that day at table; and a lar, 
dish of Persian ware, which was set before him, is still carefully 
preserved in the neighbourhood. It is to be observed that the popu- 
lation of Somersetshire does not, like that of the manufacturing 
districts, consist of emigrants from distant places. It is by no means 
unusual to find farmers who cultivate the same land which their 
ancestors cultivated when the Plantagenets reigned in England. ‘The 
Somersetshire traditions are, therefore, of no small value to a his- 
torian.* ‘ 
Ata greater distance from Bridgewater lies the village of Middle- 
zoy. In that village and its neighbourhood, the Wiltshire militia 
were quartered, under the command of Pembroke. | 
On the open moor, not far from Chedzoy, were encamped several 
battalions of regular infantry. Monmouth looked gloomily on them. 
He could not but remember how, a few years before, he had, at the 
head of a column composed of some of those very men, driven be- 
fore him in confusion the fierce enthusiasts who defended Bothwell 
Bridge. He could distinguish among the hostile ranks that gallant 
band which was then called from the name of its Colonel, Dumbar- 
ton’s regiment, but which has long been known as the first of the 
line, and which, in all the four quarters of the world, has nobly 
supported its early reputation. ‘‘I know those men,” said Mon- 
mouth; ‘‘ they will fight. If I had but them, all would go well.”+ 
Yet the aspect of the enemy was not altogether discouraging. ‘The 
three divisions of the royal army lay far apart from one another. 
There was an appearance of negligence and of relaxed discipline in 
all their movements. It was reported that they were drinking them- 
selves drunk with the Zoyland cider. The incapacity of Feversham 
who commanded in chief, was notorious. Even at this momentous 
crisis he thought only of eating and sleeping. Churchill was indeed 
a captain equal to tasks far more arduous than that of scattering a 
crowd of ill armed and ill trained peasants. But the genius, which, 
at a later period, humbled six Marshals of France, was not now 
in its proper placa Feversham told Churchill little, and gave him 
no encouragement to offer any suggestion. The lieutenant, conscious 


* Matt. West. Flor. Hist., a. p. 788; MS. Chronicle quoted by Mr. Sharon 
Turner in the History of the Anglo-Saxons, book IV. chap. xix; Drayton's 
Polyolbion, iii; Leland’s Itinerary; Oldmixon, 703. Oldmixon was then at 
Bridgewater, and probably saw the Duke on the church tower. The dish men- 
tioned in the text is the property of Mr. Stradling, who has takev laudable pains 
to preserve the relics and traditions of the Western insurrection. 

+ Oldmixon, 708. 

ja 


f 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 391 


_ of superior abilities and science, impatient of the control of a chief 

‘whom he despised, and trembling for the fate of the army, neverthe- 

jess preserved his characteristic self-command, and dissembled his 
- feelings so well that Feversham praised his submissive alacrity, and 
_ promised to report it to the King.* 

‘Monmouth, having observed the disposition of the royal forces, and 
having been apprised of the state in which they were, conceived that 
anight attack might be attended with success. He resolved to run 
the hazard; and preparations were instantly made. 

It was Sunday; and his followers, who had, for the most part, been 
brought up after the Puritan fashion, passed a great.part of the day 
in religious exercises. The Castle Field, in which the army was en- 
eamped, presented a spectacle such as, since the disbanding of Crom- 
well’s soldiers, England had never seen. The dissenting preachers 
who had taken arms against Popery, and some of whom had probably 
fought in the great civil war, prayed and preached in red coats and 
huge jackboots, with swords by their sides. Ferguson was one of 
those who harangued. He took for his text the awful imprecation by 

_ which the Israelites who dwelt beyond Jordan cleared themselves 
from the charge ignorantly brought against them by their brethren on 
the other side of the river. ‘‘ The Lord God of Gods, the Lord God 

- of Gods, he knoweth; and Israel he shal! know. If it bein rebellion, 

_ or if in transgression against the Lord, save us not this day.”’+ 

That an attack was to be made under cover of the night was no 
secret in Bridgewater. The town was full of women, who had re. 
paired thither by hundreds from the surrounding region, to see their 
husbands, sons, lovers, and brothers once more. There were many 
sad partings that day; and many parted never to meet again.{t The 
Teport of the intended attack came to the ears of a young girl who 
was zealous for the King. Though of modest character, she had the 

_ courage to resolve that she would herself bear the intelligence to 
_ Feversham. She stole out of Bridgewater, and made her way to the 
_ Troyalcamp. But that camp was not a place where female innocence 

could be safe. Even the officers, despising alike the irregular forces 
-to which they were opposed, and the negligent general who command. 
ed them, had indulged largely in wine, and were ready for any excess 
of licentiousness and cruelty. One of them seized the unhappy 
maiden, refused to listen to her errand, and brutally outraged her. 
oe a in agonies of rage and shame, leaving the wicked army to its 
oom. 


* Churchill to Clarendon, July 4, 1685. 
Oldmixon, 703; Observator, Aug. 1, 1685. 
Paschall’s Narrative in Heywood’s Appendix. 
Kennet, ed. 1719, iii. 432. Iam forced to believe that this lamentable story 
_ istrue. The “ape declares that it was communicated to him in the year 1718 
__ by abrave officer of the Blues, who had erehs at Sedgemoor, and who had him- 


self seen the poor girl depart in an agony of distress. 


« = ” ’ ae 


892 , HISTORY OF ENGLAND. . 


And now the time for the great hazard drew near. The night was 
not ill suited for such an enterprise. The moon was indeed at the 
full, and the northern streamers were shining brilliantly. But the 
marsh fog lay so thick on Sedgemoor that no object could be discerned 
there at the distance of fifty paces.* 

The clock struck eleven; and the Duke with his body guard rode 
out of the Castle. He was not in the frame of mind which befits one 
who is about to strike a decisive blow. The very children who press- 
ed to see him pass observed, and long remembered, that his look was 
sad and full of evil augury. His army marched by a circuitous path, 
near six miles in length, towards the royal encampment on Sedge- 
moor. Part of the route is to this day called War Lane. The foot 
were led by Monmouth himself. The horse were confided to Grey, 
in spite of the remonstrances of some who remembered the mishap at 
Bridport. Orders were given that strict silence should be preserved, 


. that no drum should be beaten, and no shot fired. The word by 


which the insurgents were to recognise one another in the darkness 
was Soho. It had doubtless been selected in allusion to Soho Fields 
in London, where their leader’s palace stood.+ 

At about one in the morning of Monday the sixth of July, the reb-- 
els were on the open moor. But between them and the enemy lay 
three broad rhines filled with water and soft mud. Two of these, 
called the Black Ditch and the Langmoor Rhine, Monmouth knew 
that he must pass. But, strange to say, the existence of a trench, 
called the Bussex Rhine, which immediately covered the royal en-: 
campment, had not been mentioned to him by any of his scouts. 

The wains which carried the ammunition remained at the entrance 
of the moor. The horse and foot, in a long narrow column, passed 
the Black Ditch by a causeway. There was a similar causeway 
across the Langmoor Rhine but the guide, in the fog, missed his way. 
There was some delay and some tumult before the error could be rec- 
tified. At length the passage was effected; but, in the confusion, a~ 


ae — -_——— 


* Narrative of an officer of the Horse Guards in Kennet, ed. 1718, iii. 482; MS 
Journal of the Western Rebellion, kept by Mr. Edward Dummer; Dryden’s Hind 
and Panther, part II. The lines of Dryden are remarkable:— 


** Such were the pleasing triumphs of the sky 
For James’s late nocturnal victory, 
The fireworks which his angels made above. 
The pledge of his almighty patron’s love, 
I saw myself the lambent easy light 
Gild the brown horror and dispel the night. 
The messenger with speed the tidings bore, 
News which three labouring nations did restore: 
But heaven’s own Nuntius was arrived before.”’ 


+ It has been said by several writers, and among them by Pennant, that the 
district in London called Soho derived its name from the watchword of Mon- 
mouth’s army at Sedgemoor. Mention of Soho Fields will be found in many 
books printed before the Western insurrection; for example, in Chamberlayne’s i 
State of England, 1684, al 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 893 


pistol went off. Some men of the Horse Guards, who were on watch, 
heard the report, and perceived that a great multitude was advancing 
through the mist. They fired their carbines, and galloped off in dif- 
ferent directions to give the alarm. Some hastened to Weston Zoy 
 Jand, where the cavalry lay. One trooper spurred to the encampment 
of the infantry, and cried out vehemently that the enemy was at hand. 
The drums of Dumbarton’s regiment beat to arms; and the men got 
fast into their ranks. It was time; for Monmouth was already draw- 
ing up his army for action. He ordered Grey to lead the way with 
the cavalry, and followed himself at the head of the infantry. Grey 
ushed on till his progress was unexpectedly arrested by the Bussex 
Rhine. On the opposite side of the ditch the King’s foot were hastily 
forming in order of battle. 

“For whom are you?” called out an officer of the Foot Guards. 
“For the King,” replied a voice from the ranks of the rebel cavalry. 
“For which King?” was then demanded. The answer was a shout 
of ‘King Monmouth,” mingled with the war cry, which forty years 

before had been inscribed on the colours of the parliamentary regi- 
ments, ‘‘God with us.” The royal troops instantly fired such a vol- 
ley of musketry as sent the rebel horse flying in all directions. The 
world agreed to ascribe this ignominious rout to Grey’s pusillanimity. 
Yet it is by no means clear that Churchill would have succeeded bet- 
ter at the head of men who had never before handled arms on horse- 
back, and whose horses were unused, not only to stand fire, but to 
obey the rein. 

A few minutes after.the Duke’s horse had dispersed themselves 
over the moor, his infantry came up running fast, and guided through 
the gloom by the lighted matches of Dumbarton’s regiment. 

Monmouth was startled ‘by finding that a broad and profound 
trench lay between him and the camp which he had hoped to sur- 
‘prise. The insurgents halted on the edge of the rhine, and fired. Part 
of the royal infantry on the opposite bank returned the fire. During 

_ three quarters of an hour the roar of the musketry wasincessant. The 

Somersetshire peasants behaved themselves as if they had been veteran 
soldiers, save only that they levelled their pieces too high. 

But now the other divisions of the royal army were in motion. 
The Life Guards and Blues came pricking fast from Weston Zoyland, 
and scattered in an instant some of Grey’s horse, who had attempted 
torally. The fugitives spread a panic among their comrades in the 
rear, who had charge of the ammunition. The waggoners drove off 
at. full speed, and never stopped till they were many miles from the 
field of battle. Monmouth had hitherto done his part like a stout and 

able warrior. He had been seen on foot, pike in hand, encouraging 
his infantry by voice and by example. But he was too well acquaint- 
ed with military affairs not to know that all was over. His men had 
lost the advantage which surprise and darkness had given them. 
They were deserted by the horse and by the ammunition waggons. 


— 


? 


i. 


304. ita, HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


The King’s forces were now united and in good order. Feversham 
had been awakened by the firing, had got out of bed, had adjusted his 
cravat, had looked at himself well in the glass, and had come to see 
what his men were doing. Meanwhile, what was of much more im- 
portance, Churchill had rapidly made an entirely new disposition of 
the royal infantry. ‘The day was about to break. The event of a 
conflict on an open plain, by broad sunlight, could not be doubtful. 
Yet Monmouth should have felt that it was not for him to fly, while 
thousands whom affection for him had hurried to destruction were 
still fighting manfully in his cause. But vain hopes and the intense 
love of life prevailed. He saw that if he tarried the royal cavalry 
would soon intercept his retreat. He mounted and rode from the 
field. 

Yet his foot, though deserted, made a gallant stand. The Life 
Guards attacked them on the right, the Blues on the left; but the 
Somersetshire clowns, with their scythes and the butt ends of their 
muskets, faced the royal horse like old soldiers. Oglethorpe made 
a vigorous attempt to break them and was manfully repulsed. Sars- 
field, a brave Irish officer, whose name afterwards obtained a melan- 
choly celebrity, charged on the other flank. His men were beaten 
back. He was himself struck to the ground, and lay for a time as 
one dead. But the struggle of the hardy rustics could not last. 
Their powder and ball were spent. Cries were heard of ‘‘ Ammuni- 
tion! For God’s sake, ammunition!” But no ammunition was at 
hand. And now the King’s artillery came up. It had been posted 
half a mile off, on the high road from Weston Zoyland to Bridge- 
water. So defective were then the appointments of an English army 
that there would have been much difficulty in dragging the great 
guns to the place where the battle was raging, had not the Bishop of 
Winchester offered his coach horses and traces for the purpose. ‘This 
interference of a Christian prelate in a matter of blood has, with 
strange inconsistency, been condemned by some Whig writers who 
can see nothing criminal in the conduct of the numerous Puritan 
ministers then in arms against the government. Even when the guns 
had arrived, there was such a want of gunners that a serjeant of 
Dumbarton’s regiment was forced to take on himself the manage- 
ment of several pieces.* The cannon, however, though ill served, 
brought the engagement to a speedy close. The pikes of the rebel 
battalions began to shake: the ranks broke; the King’s cavalr 
charged again, and bore down everything before them; the Kings 
infantry came pouring across the ditch. Even in that extremity the 
Mendip miners stood bravely to their arms, and sold their lives dearly. 


* There isa warrant of James directing that forty pounds should be paid to 
Serjeant Weems. of Dumbarton’s regiment, ‘‘for good service in the action at 
Ap Saamaee in firing the great guns against the rebels.’—Historical Record of — 
the First or Royal Regiment of Foot. : ‘ 


r 
rh 
¢ 
, 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 395 


But the rout was in a few minutes complete. Three hundred of the 
soldiers had been killed or wounded. Of the rebels more than a 
thousand lay dead on the moor.* 

So ended the last fight deserving the name of battle, that has been 
fought on English ground. The impression left on the simple in 
habitants of the neighbourhood was deep and lasting. That impres- 
sion, indeed, has been frequently renewed. For even in our own 


* James the Second’s account of the battle of Sedgemoorin Lord Hardwicke’s 
State Papers; Wade’s Confession; Ferguson’s MS. Narrative in Eachard, iii. 
768; Narrative of an officer of the Horse Guards in Kennet, ed. 1719, iii. 482, 
London Gazette, July 9, 1685: Oldmixon, 703; Paschall’s Narrative: Burnet, i. 
643; Evelyn’s Diary, July 8; Van Citters, July 7-17; Barillon, July 9-19; Reresby’s 
Memoirs; the Duke of Buckingham’s battle of Sedgemoor, a Farce; MS. Jour- 
nal of the Western Rebellion, kept by Mr. Edward Dummer, then serving in the 

train of artillery employed by His Majesty for the suppression of the same. 
The last mentioned manuscript is in the Pepysian library, and is of the greatest 
- value, not on account of the narrative, which contains little that is remarkable, 
but on account of the plans, which exhibit the battle in four or five different 
stages. 

“The history of a battle,’’ says the greatest of living generals, ‘‘is not unlike 
the history of a bail. Some individuals may recollect all the little events of 
which the great result is the battle won or lost; but no individual can recollect 
the order in which, or the exact moment at which, they occurred, which makes 
all the difference as to their value or importance. . . . . Just toshow you 
how little reliance can be placed even on what are supposed the best accounts 
of a battle, I mention that there are some circumstances mentioned in General 
—’s account which did not occur as he relates them. It is impossible to say 
when each important occurrence took place, or in what order.”—Wellington 
Papers, Aug. 8, and 17, 1815. 

he battle concerning which the Duke of Wellington wrote thus was that of 

Waterloo, fought only a few weeks before, by broad day, under his own vigi- 
lant and experienced eye. What then must be the difficulty of compiling from 
twelve or thirteen narratives an account of a battle fought more than a hundred 
and sixty years ago in such darkness that nota man of those engaged could see 
fifty paces before him? The difficulty is aggravated by the circumstance that 
those witnesses who had the best opportunity of knowing the truth were by no 
means inclined to tell it. The Paper which I have placed at the head of my list 
of authorities was evidently drawn up with extreme partiality to Feversham, 
Wade was writing under the dread of the halter. Ferguson, who was seldom 
scrupulous about the truth of his assertions, lied on this oceasion like Bobadil 
or Parolles. Oldmixon, who was a boy at Bridgewater when the battle was 
fought, and passed a great part of his subsequent life there, was so much under 
the influence of local passions that his local information was useless to him. 
His desire to Syyaaed the valour of the Somersetshire peasants, a valour which 
_ their enemies acknowledged and which did not need to be set off by exaggera- 
tion and fiction, led him to compose an absurd romance. The eulogy which 
Barillon, a Frenchman accustomed to despise raw levies. pronounced on the 
vanquished army, is of much more value, ‘‘ Son infanterie fit fort bien. On eut 
de la peine & les rompre, et les soldats combattoient avec les crosses de mous- 
quet et les scies qu’ils avoient au bout de grands bastons au lieu de picques.”’ 
Little is now to be learned by visiting the field of battle; for the face of the 
country has been greatly changed; and the old Bussex Reine on the banks of 
‘Which the great struggle took place, has long disappeared. The rhine now 
called by that name is of later date, and takes a different course. 

Ihave derived much assistance from Mr. Roberts's account of the battle. 
et ah chap. xxii. His narrative is in the main confirmed by Dum- 

¢ ans. 


mn 
ASS 
ral 
a 
ss. 


396 
time the plough and the spade have not seldom turned up ghastly 
memorials of the slaughter, skulls, and thighbones, and stranga 
weapons made out of implements of husbandry. Old peasants re- 
lated very recently that, in their childhood, they were accustomed 
to play on the moor at the fight between King James’s men and King 
Monmouth’s men, and that King Monmouth’s men always raised the 
cry of Soho.* 

What seems most extraordinary in the battle of Sedgemoor is that 
the event should have been for a moment doubtful, and that the 
rebels should have resisted so long. That five or six thousand col- 
liers and ploughmen should contend during an hour with half that 
number of regular cavalry and infantry would now be thought a 
miracle. Our wonder will, perhaps, be diminished when we remem- 
ber that, in the time of James the Second, the discipline of the reg- 
ular army was extremely lax, and that, on the other hand, the peas- 
antry were accustomed to serve in the militia. The difference, 
therefore, between a regiment of the Foot Guards and a regiment of 
clowns just enrolled, though doubtless considerable, was by no means 
what it now is. Monmouth did not lead a mere mob to attack good 
soldiers. For his followers were not altogether without a tincture of 
soldiership; and Feversham’s trcops, when compared with English 
troops of our time, might almost be called a mob. 

It was four o'clock: the sun was rising; ard the routed army came 
pouring into the streets of Bridgewater. The uproar, the blood, the 
gashes, the ghastly figures which sank down and never rose again, 
spread horror and dismay through the town. The pursuers, too, 
were close behind. Those inhabitants who had favoured the insur- 
rection expected sack and massacre, and implored the protection of 
their neighbours who professed the Roman Catholic religion, or had 
made themselves conspicuous by Tory politics; and it is acknowl- 
edged by the bitterest of Whig historians that this protection was 
kindly and generously given. + 

During that day the conquerors continued to chase the fugitives. 
The neighbouring villagers long remembered with what a clatter of 
horsehoofs and what a storm of curses the whirlwind of cavalry 
swept by. Before evening five hundred prisoners had been crowded 
into the parish church of Weston Zoyland. Eighty of them were 
wounded; and five expired within the consecrated walls. Great 
numbers of labourers were impressed for the purpose of burying the 
slain. A few, who were notoriously partial to the vanquished side, 
were set apart for the hideous office of quartering the captives. The 
tithing men of the neighbouring parishes were busied in setting up 
ibbets and providing chains. All this while the bells of Weston 
oyland and Chedzoy rang joyously; and the soldiers sang and 


* [learned these things from persons living close to Sedgemoor. “4 
+ Oldmixon, 704. '® 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 897 


rioted on the moor amidst the corpses. For the farmers of the 
neighbourhood had made haste, as soon as the event of the fight was 
known, to send hogsheads of their best cider as peace offerings to the 
victors. * 
Feversham passed for a goodnatured man: but he was.a foreigner, 
ignorant of the laws and careless of the feelings of the English. He 
‘was accustomed to the military license of France, and had learned 
from his great kinsman, the conqueror and devastator of the Palati- 
nate, not indeed how to conquer, but how to devastate. A consider- 
able number of prisoners were immediately selected for execution. 
Among them was a youth famous for his speed. Hopes were held 
out to him that his life would be spared if he could run a race with 
one of the colts of the marsh. The space through which the man 
kept up with the horse is still marked by well known bounds on the 
moor, and is about three quarters of a mile. Feversham was not 
ashamed, after seeing the performance, to send the wretched per- 
former to the gallows. The next day a long line of gibbets ap- 
peared on the road leading from Bridgewater to Weston Zoyland, 
On each gibbet a prisoner was suspended. Four of the sufferers 
were left to rot in irons.+ 
Meanwhile Monmouth, accompanied by Grey, by Buyse, and by a 
few other friends, was flying from the field of battle. AtChedzoy he 
stopped a moment to mount a fresh horse and to hide his blue riband 
and his George. He then hastened towards the Bristo! Channel. From 
the rising ground on the north of the field of battle he saw the flash and 
the smoke of the last volley fired by his deserted followers. Before 
six o’clock he was twenty miles from Sedgemoor. Some of his 
companions advised him to cross the water, and seek refuge in 
Wales; and this would undoubtedly have been his wisest course. He 
would have been in Wales many hours before the news of his defeat 
was known there; and in a country so wild and so remote from the 
seat of government, he might have remained long undiscovered. He 
determined, however, to push for Hampshire, in the hope that he 
‘Mightslurk in the cabins of deerstealers among the oaks of the New 
Forest, till means of conveyance to the Continent could be procured. 
He therefore, with Grey and the German, turned to the southeast. 
‘But the way was beset with dangers. The three fugitives had to 
traverse a country in which every one already knew the event of the 
battle, and in which no traveller of suspicious appearance could 
escape aclose scrutiny. They rode on all day, shunning towns and 
villages. Nor was this so difficult as it may now appear. For men 
then living could remember the time when the wild deer ranged 
freely through a succession of forests from the banks of the Avon 
in Wiltshire to the southern coast of Hampshire.{ At length, on 


* Locke’s Western Rebellion; Stradling’s Chilton Priory. 
tLocke’s Western Rebellion; Stradling’s Chilton Priory; Oldmixon, 704. 
+ Aubrey’s Natural History of Wiltshire, 1691. 


398 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


Cranbourne Chase, the strength of the horses failed. They were 
therefore turned loose. The bridles and saddles were concealed. 
Monmouth and his friends procured rustic attire, disguised them- 
selves, and proceeded on foot towards the New Forest. They passed 
the night in the open air: but before morning they were surrounded 
on every side by toils. Lord Lumley, who lay at Ringwood with a 
strong body of thé Sussex militia, had sent forth parties in every 
direction. Sir William Portman, with the Somerset militia, had 
formed a chain of posts from the sea to the northern extremity of 
Dorset. At five in the morning of the seventh, Grey, who had 
wandered from his friends, was seized by two of the Sussex scouts. 
He submitted to his fate with the calmness of one to.whom suspense 
was more intolerable than despair. ‘‘ Since we landed,” he said, 
‘‘T have not had one comfortable meal or one quiet night.” It could 
hardly be doubted that the chief rebel was not far off. The pur- 
suers redoubled their vigilance and activity. The cottages scat- 
tered over the heathy country on the boundaries of Dorsetshire and 
Hampshire were strictly examined by Lumley; and the clown with 
whom Monmouth had changed clothes was discovered. Portman 
came with a strong body of horse and foot to assist in the search. 
Attention was soon drawn to a place well fitted to shelter fugitives. 
It was an extensive tract of land separated by an enclosure from the 
open country, and divided by numerous hedges into small fields. In 
some of these fields the rye, the pease, and the oats were high 
enough to conceal a man. Others were overgrown with fern and 
brambles. A poor woman reported that she had seen two strangers 
lurking in this covert. The near prospect of reward animated the 
zeal of the troops. It was agreed that every man who did his duty 
in the search should have his share of the promised five thousand 
pounds. The outer fence was strictly guarded: the space within 
was examined with indefatigable diligence; and several dogs of 
quick scent were turned out among the bushes. The day closed 
before the work could be completed: but careful watch was-kept all 
night. Thirty times the fugitives ventured to look through the, outer 
hedge: but everywhere they found a sentinel on the alert: once they 
were seen and fired at; they then separated and concealed themselves 
in different hiding places. ; 

At sunrise the next morning the search recommenced, and Buyse: 
was found. He owned that he had parted from the Duke only a few 
hours before. The corn and copsewood were now beaten with more 
care than ever. At length a gaunt figure was discovered hidden in 
a ditch. The pursuers sprang on their prey. Some of them were 
about to fire: but Portman forbade all vio.ence. The prisoners 
dress was that of a shepherd; his beard, prematurely grey, was of 
several days’ growth. He trembled greatly, and was unable to speak. 
Even those who had often seen him were at first in doubt whether 
this were truly the brilliant and graceful Monmouth. His pockets 


a 


HISTORY. OF ENGLAND. 800 


were searched by Portman, and in them were found, among some 
‘raw pease gathered in the rage of hunger, a watch, a purse of gold, 
a small treatise on fortification, an album filled with songs, receipts, 
prayers, and charms, and the George with which, many years 
before, King Charles the Second had decorated his favourite son. 
Messengers were instantly despatched to Whitehall with the good 
news, and with the George as a token that the news was true. - The 
prisoner was conveyed under a strong guard to Ringwood.* 

Andall was lost; and nothing remained but that he should prepare 
to meet death as became one who had thought himself not unworthy to 
wear the crown of William the Conqueror and of Richard the Lion 
hearted, of the hero of Cressy and of the hero of Agincourt,- The cap- 
tive might easily have called to mind other domestic examples, still 
better suited to hiscondition. Within a hundred years, two sovereigns 
whose blood ran in his veins, one of them a delicate woman, had 
been placed in the same situation in which he now stood. They had 
shown, in the prison and on the scaffold, virtue of which, in the 
season of prosperity, they had seemed incapable, and had half re- 
deemed great crimes and errors by enduring with Christian meek- 
‘ness and princely dignity all that victorious enemies could inflict. 
Of cowardice Monmouth had never been accused; and, even had he 
been wanting in constitutional courage, it might have been expected 
that the defect would be supplied by pride and by despair. The 
eyes of the whole world were upon him. The latest generations 
would know how, in that extremity, he had borne himself. To the 
brave peasants of the West he owed it to show that they had not 
poured forth their blood for a leader unworthy of their attachment. 
To her who had sacrificed everything for his sake he owed it so to 
bear himself that, though she might weep for him, she should not 
blush for him. It was not for him to lament and supplicate. His 

-Teason, too, should have told him that lamentation and supplication 
would be unavailing. He had done that which could never be for- 
given. He was in the grasp of one who never forgave. 

But the fortitude of Monmouth was not that highest sort of fortitude 
which is derived from reflection and from selfrespect; nor had nature 

given him one of those stout hearts from which neither adversity nor 
peril can extort any sign of weakness, His courage rose and fell with 
his animal spirits. It was sustained on the field of battle by the excite- 
ment of action. By the hope of victory, by the strange influence of 
sympathy. All such aids were now taken away. The spoiled dar- 
ling of the court and of the populace, accustomed to be loved and 
worshipped wherever he appeared, was now surrounded by stern 
gaolers in whose eyes he read hisdoom. Yet a few hours of gloomy 


* Account of the manner of taking the late Duke of Monmouth, published 
La his Majesty’s command; Gazette de France, July 18-28, 1685; Eachard, iii, 
7%; Burnet, i. 664, and Dartmouth’s note; Van Citters, July 10-20, 1685, 


<i he 
Ca 
Pes. 


400 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


seclusion, and he must die a violent and shameful death. His heart 
sank within him. Life seemed worth purchasing by any humilia- 
tion; nor could his mind, always feeble, and now distracted 
by terror, perceive that humiliation must degrade, but could not 
save him. . 

As soon as he reached Ringwood he wrote to the King. The let 
ter was that of a man whom a craven fear had made insensible to 
shame. He professed in vehement terms his remorse for his treason. 
He affirmed that, when he promised his cousins at the Hague not to 
raise troubles in England, he had fully meant to keep his word. 
Unhappily he had afterwards been seduced from his allegiance by 
some horrid people who had heated his mind by calumnies and mis- 
led him by sophistry; but now he abhorred them: he abhorred him- 
self. He begged in piteous terms that he might be admitted to the 
royal presence. There was a secret which he could not trust to 
paper, a secret which lay in a single word, and which, if he spoke 
that word, would secure the throne against all danger. On the fol- 
lowing day he despatched letters, imploring the Queen Dowager and 
the Lord Gresantee to intercede in his behalf.*. 

When it was known in London how he had abased himself the 
general surprise was great; and no man was more amazed than Baril- 
lon, who had resided in England during two bloody proscriptions, 
and had seen numerous victims, both of the Opposition and of the 
Court, submit to their fate without womanish entreaties and lamen- 
tations.+ 

Monmouth and Grey remained at Ringwood two days. They 
were then carried up to London, under the guard of a large body of 
regular troops and militia. In the coach with the Duke was an ofli- 
cer whose orders were to stab the prisoner if a rescue were attempted. 
At every town along the road the trainbands of the neighbourhood 
had been mustered under the command of the principal gentry. The 
march lasted three days, and terminated at Vauxhall, where a regi- 
ment commanded by George Legge, Lord Dartmouth, was in readi- 
ness to receive the prisoners. They were put on board of a state 
barge, and carried down the river to Whitehall Stairs. Lumley and 
Portman had alternately watched the Duke day and night till they 
had brought him within the walls of the palace. t | 

Both the demeanour of Monmouth and that of Grey, during the 
journey, filled all observers with surprise. Monmouth was alto- 
gether unnerved. Grey was not only calm but cheerful, talked 


* The letter to the King was printed at the time by authority: that to the 
Queen Dowager will be found in Sir H. Ellis’s Original Letters; that to Roches- 
ter in the Clarendon Correspondence. ls | 

+ ‘On trouve,’’ he wrote, *‘ fort 4 redire icy qu’il ayt fait une chose si peu or- 
dinaire aux Anglois.”” July 14-23, 1685. ‘ 

a3 Account of the manner of taking the Duke of Monmouth; Gazette, July 16, 
1685; Van Citters, July 14-24 : 


- HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 401 


f : ‘ 
pleasantly of horses, dogs, and field sports, and even made jocose 
allusions to the perilous situation in which he stood. 

The King cannot be blamed for determining that Monmouth 
should suffer death. Every man who heads a rebellion against an 
established government stakes his life on the event; and rebellion 
was the smallest part of Monmouth’s crime. He had declared 
against his uncle a war without quarter. In the manifesto put forth 
at Lyme, James had been held up to execration as an incendiary, as 
an assassin who had strangled one innocent man and cut the throat 
of another, and, lastly, as the poisoner of his own brother. To spare 
an enemy who had not scrupled to resort to such extremities would 
have been an act of rare, perhaps of blamable generosity. But to 

_ see him and not to spare him was an outrage on humanity and de- 
cency.* ‘This outrage the King resolved to commit. The arms of 
the prisoner were bound behind him with a silken cord; and, thus 
secured, he was ushered into the presence of the implacable kinsman 
whom he had wronged. 

Then Monmouth threw himself on the ground, and crawled to the 
King’s feet. He wept. He tried to embrace his uncle’s knees with 
his pinioned arms. He begged for life, only life, life at any price. 
He owned that he had been guilty of a great crime, but tried to 
throw the blame on others, particularly on Argyle, who would rather 
have put his legs into the boots than have saved his own life by such 
baseness. By the ties of kindred, by the memory of the late King, 
who had been the best and truest of brothers, the unhappy man adjured 
James to show some mercy. James gravely replied that this repent- 
ance was of the latest, that he was sorry for the misery which the 
prisoner had brought on himself, but that the case was not one for 
lenity. A Declaration filled with atrocious calumnies, had been put 
forth. The regal title had been assumed. For treasons so aggra- 
vated there could be no pardon on this side of the grave. The poor 
terrified Duke vowed that he had never wished to take the crown, 
but had been led into that fatal error by others. As to the Declara- 
tion, he had not written it: he had not read it: he had signed it 
Without looking at it: it was all the work of Ferguson, that bloody 

Villain Ferguson. ‘‘Do you expect me to believe,” said James, with 
contempt but too well merited, ‘‘that you set your hand to a paper 
of such moment without knowing what it contained?” One depth of 
infamy only remained; and even to that the prisoner descended. He 
Was preéminently the champion of the Protestant religion. The inter- 

est of that religion had been his plea for conspiring against the gov- 
ernment of his father, and for bringing on his country the miseries of 

Civil war; yet he was not ashamed to hint that he was inclined to 


s 


__* Barillon was evidently much shocked, ‘Ill se vient,” he says, ‘‘de passer 
icy, une chose bien extraordinaire et fort opposée a l’usage ordinaire des autres 
_ nations,” 13-23, 1685, 


¥ aa, 
Ota 
us ‘ ‘ 
At . » ‘ 


402 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


be reconciled to the Church of Rome. The King eagerly offered — 


him spiritual assistance, but said nothing of pardon or respite. 
‘‘Js there then no hope?” asked Monmouth. James turned away in 


silence. Then Monmouth strove to rally his courage, rose from his — 


knees, and retired with a firmness which he had not shown since his 
overthrow.* 

Grey was introduced next. He behaved with a propriety and for- 
titude which moved even -the stern and resentful King, frankly 
owned himself guilty, made no excuses, and did not once stoop to ask 
his life. Both the prisoners were sent to the Tower by water. There 
was no tumult; but many thousands of people, with anxiety and sor- 
row in their faces, tried to catch a glimpse of the captives. The 
Duke’s resolution failed as soon as he had left the royal presence. On 
his way to his prison he bemoaned himself, accused his followers, 
and abjectly implored the intercession of Dartmouth. ‘‘1 know, 


my Lord, that youloved my father. For his sake, for God’s sake, try” 


if there be any room for mercy.” Dartmouth replied that the King 
had spoken the truth, and that a subject who assumed the regal title 
excluded himself from all hope of pardon.t+ 

Soon after Monmouth had been lodged in the Tower, he was in- 
formed that his wife had, by the royal command, been sent to see 


him. She was accompanied by the Earl of Clarendon, Keeper of — 


the Privy Seal. Her husband received her very coldly, and addressed 
almost all his discourse to Clarendon, whose intercession he earnestly 
implored. Clarendon held out no hopes; and that same evening two 
prelates, Turner, Bishop of Ely, and Ken, Bishop of Bath and Wells, 
arrived at the Tower with a solemn message from the King. It was 
Monday night. On Wednesday morning Monmouth was to die. 

He was greatly agitated. The blood left his cheeks; and it was 


some time before he could speak. Most of the short time which re- © 


aa RE 
‘ E 


mained to him he wasted in vain attempts to obtain, if not a pardon, ~ 
at least a respite. He wrote piteous letters to the King and to several 


courtiers, but in vain. Some Roman Catholic divines were sent to 
him from Whitehall. But they soon discovered that, though he 
would gladly have purchased his life by renouncing the religion of 
which he had professed himself in an especial manner the defender, 


* Burnet, i. 644; Evelyn’s Diary, July 15; Sir J. Bramston’s Memoirs; Reres- 
ie peers j James to the Prince of Orange, July 14, 1685; Barillon, July 16-26; 
uccleuc : 


+ James tothe Prince of Orange, July 14, 1685; Dutch Despatch of the same — 


date; Dartmouth’s note on Burnet, i. 646; Narcissus Luttrell’s Diary, (1848) a 
copy of this diary, from July 1685 to Sept. 1690, is among the Mackintosh papers. 
To the rest Iwas allowed access by the kindness of the Warden of All Souls’ 
College, where the original MS. is deposited. The delegates of the Press of the 
University of Oxford have since published the whole in six substantial vol- 
umes, which will, Iam afraid, find little favour with readers who seek only for 
amusement, but which will always be useful as materials for history. (185/,) 


d 
< 


. 


. Ba wd z 


‘ 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 403 


. yet, if he was to die, he would as soon die without their absolution 


as with it.* 
Nor were Ken and Turner much better pleased with his frame of © 


‘mind. The doctrine of nonresistance was, in their view, as in the 
view of most of their brethren, the distinguishing badge of the An- 
- glican Church. The two Bishops insisted on Monmouth’s owning 


that, in drawing the sword against the government, he had committed 
a great sin; and, on this point, they found him obstinately hetero- 
dox. Nor was this his only heresy. He maintained that his connec- 
tion with Lady Wentworth was blameless in the sight of God. He 
had been married, he said, when a child. He had never cared for 
his Duchess. The happiness which he had not found at home he had 
sought in a round of loose amours, condemned by religion and moral- 
ity. Henrietta had reclaimed him from a life of vice. To her he 
had been strictly constant. They had, by common consent, offered 
up fervent prayers for the divine guidance. After those prayers 
they had found their affection for each other strengthened; and they 
could then no longer doubt that, in the sight of God, they were a 
wedded pair. The Bishops were so much scandalised by this view » 
of the conjugal relation that they refused to administer the sacrament 
to the prisoner. - All that they could obtain from him was a promise 
that, during the single night which still remained to him, he would 
pray to be enlightened if he were in error. 

On the Wednesday morning, at his particular request, Doctor 
Thomas Tenison, who then held the vicarage of Saint Martin’s, and, 
in that important cure, had obtained the high esteem of the public, 
came to the Tower. From Tenison, whose opinions were known to 
be moderate, the Duke expected more indulgence than Ken and Tur- 
ner were disposed to show. But Tenison, whatever might be his 
sentiments concerning nonresistance in the abstract, thought the late 
rebellion rash and wicked, and considered Monmouth’s notion 
respecting marriage as a most dangerous delusion. Monmouth was 
obstinate. He had prayed, he said, for the divine direction. His 
sentiments remained unchanged; and he could not doubt that they 
were correct. ‘Tenison’s exhortations were in milder tone than those 
of the Bishops. But he, like them, thought that he should not be 
justified in administering the Eucharist to one whose penitence was 
of so unsatisfactory a nature.+ 

The hour drew near: all hope was over; and Monmouth had passed 
from pusillanimous fear to the apathy of despair. His children were 
brought to his room that he might take leave of them, and were fol- 
lowed by his wife. He spoke to her kindly, but without emotion. 


*Buccleuch MS; Life of James the Second, ii. 37, Orig Mem.; Van Citters, 
eRe 1685; Gazette de France, August 1-11. ; 

+ Buccleuch MS.; Life of James the Second, ii. 87, 38, Orig. Mem.; Burnet, i. 
645; Tenison’s account in Kennet, iii. 482, ed. 1719, 


404 | HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


Though she was a woman of great strength of mind, and had little 


cause to love him, her misery was such that none of the bystanders 
could refrain from weeping. He alone was unmoved.* 
It was ten o’clock. The coach of the Lieutenant of the Tower was 


ready. Monmouth requested his spiritual advisers to accompany him | 


to the place of execution; and they consented: but they told him 
that, in their judgment, he was about to die in a perilous state of 


mind, and that, if they attended him it would be their duty to exhort 


him to the last. As he passed along the ranks of the guards he 
saluted them with a smile; and he mounted the scaffold with a firm 
tread. ‘Tower Hill was covered up to the chimney tops with an innu- 
merable multitude of gazers, who, in awful silence, broken only by 
sighs and the noise of weeping, listened for the last accents of the 
darling of the people. ‘‘I shall say little,” he began. ‘‘I come here, 
not to speak, but to die. I die a Protestant of the Church of Eng- 
land.” The Bishops interrupted him, and told him that, unless he 
acknowledged resistance to be sinful, he was no member of their 
church. He went on to speak of his Henrietta. She was, he said, a 
young lady of virtue and honour. He loved her to the last, and he 
could not die without giving utterance to his feelings. ‘The Bishops 
again interfered, and begged him not to use such. language. _Some 
altercation followed. The divines have been accused of dealing 
harshly with the dying man. But they appear to have only dis- 
charged what, in their view, was a sacred duty. Monmouth knew 
their principles, and, if he wished to avoid their importunity, should 


have dispensed with their attendance. Their general arguments . 


against resistance had no effect on him. But when they reminded 
him of the ruin which he had brought on his brave and loving fol- 
lowers, of the blood which had been shed, of the souls which had 
been sent unprepared to the great account, he was touched, and said, 
in a softened voice, ‘‘I do own that. JI am sorry that it ever hap- 
pened.” They prayed with him long and fervently; and he joined 
in their petitions till they invoked a blessing on the King. He 
remained silent. ‘‘Sir,” said one of the Bishops, ‘‘ do you not pray 
for the King with us?” Monmouth paused some time, and, after an 
internal struggle, exclaimed ‘‘Amen.” But it was in vain that the 
prelates implored him to address to the soldiers and to the people a 
few words on the duty of obedience to the government. ‘‘I will 
make no speeches,” he exclaimed. ‘‘Only ten words, my Lord.” He 
turned away, called his servant, and put into the man’s hand a tooth- 
pick case, the last token of ill starred love. ‘‘ Give it.” he said, ‘‘ to 
that person,” He then accosted John Ketch the executioner, a wretch 
who had butchered many brave and noble victims, and whose name 
has, during a century and a half, been vulgarly given to all who 


* Buccleuch MS. 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. | 405 


‘have succeeded him in his odious office.* ‘‘ Here,” said the Duke, 
“are six guineas for you. Do not hack me as you did my Lord 
Russell. have heard that you struck him three or four times. M 
_ servant will give you some more gold if you do the work well.” He 
_ then undressed, felt the edge of the axe, expressed some fear that it 
was not sharp enough, and laid his head on the block. The divines 
in the meantime continued to ejaculate with great energy: ‘‘ God 
accept your repentance! God accept your imperfect repentance!” 
_ The hangman addressed himself to his office. But he had been 
_ disconcerted by what the Duke had said. The first blow inflicted 
- only aslight wound. The Duke struggled, rose from the block, and 
looked reproachfully at the executioner. The head sunk down once 
more. The stroke was repeated again and again; but still the neck 
_ was not severed, and the body continued tomove. Yells of rage and 
_ horror rose from the crowd. Ketch flung down the axe with a curse. 
_ “IT cannot do it,” he said; ‘‘my heart fails me.” ‘‘Fling him over 
_ the rails,” roared the mob. At length the axe was taken up. Two 
: more blows extinguished the last remains of life; but a knife was 
_ used to separate the head from the shoulders. The crowd was 
_ wrought up to such an ecstasy of rage that the executioner was in 
3 danger of being torn in pieces, and was conveyed away under a 
_ strong guard.+ 
i In the meantime many handkerchiefs were dipped in the Duke’s 
blood; for by a large part of the multitude he was regarded as a 
_ martyr who had died for the Protestant religion. The head and 
body were placed in a coffin covered with black velvet, and were laid 
_ privately under the communion table of Saint Peter’s Chapel in the 
Tower. Within four years the pavement of the chancel was again 
disturbed, and hard by the remains of Monmouth were laid the 
remains of Jeffreys. ~ In truth there is no sadder spot on the earth 
_ than that little cemetery. Death is there associated, not, as in West- 
4 minster Abbey and St. Paul’s, with genius and virtue, with public 
veneration and imperishable renown; not, as in our humblest 
_ churches and churchyards, with everything that is most endearing in 
- social and domestic charities; but with whatever is darkest in human 
nature and in human destiny, with the savage triumph of implacable 


s, 


r 
‘ * The name of Ketch was often associated with that of Jeffreys in the lam- 
f poons of those days. 


‘* While Jeffreys on the bench, Ketch on the gibbet sits,”’ 


_ says one poet. In the year which followed Monmouth’s execution Ketch was 
turned out of his office for insulting one of the Sheriffs, and was succeeded by a 
_ butcher named Rose. But in four months Rose himself was hanged at Tyburn, 
_ and Ketch was reinstated. Luttrell’s Diary, January 20, and May 28, 1686. See 
a curious note by Dr. Grey, on Hudibras, part iii. canto ii. line 1534. 

+ Account of the execution of Monmouth, signed by the divines who attended 
him; Buccleuch MS; Burnet, i. 616; Van Citters, July 17-27, 1685; Luttrell’s 
Diary; Evelyn’s Diary, July 15; Barillon, July 19-29, 


406 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. | 


enemies, with the inconstancy, the ingratitude, the cowardice of 
friends, with all the miseries of fallen greatness and of blighted fame. 
Thither have been carried, through successive ages, by the rude 
hands of gaolers, without one mourner following, the bleeding relics ~ 
of men who had been the captains of armies, the leaders of parties, — 
the oracles of senates, and the ornaments of courts. Thither was 
borne, before the window where Jane Grey was praying, the mangled © 
corpse of Guilford Dudley. Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, — 
and Protector of the realm, reposes there by the brother whom he — 
murdered. There has mouldered away the headless trunk of John 
Fisher, Bishop of Rochester and Cardinal of Saint Vitalis, a man 
worthy to have lived in a better age and to have died in a better 
cause. There are laid John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, Lord 
High Admiral, and Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex, Lord High 
Treasurer. There, too, is another Essex, on whom nature and for- 
tune had lavished all their bounties in vain, and whom valour, grace, ~ 
genius, royal favour, popular applause, conducted to an early and — 
ignominious doom. Not far off sleep two chiefs of the great house of — 
Howard, Thomas, fourth Duke of Norfolk, and Philip, eleventh 
Earl of Arundel. Here and there, among the thick graves of unquiet — 
and aspiring statesmen, lie more delicate sufferers; Margaret of Salis- 
bury, the last of the proud name of Plantagenet; and those two fair © 
Queens who perished by the jealous rage of Henry. Such was the — 
dust with which the dust of Monmouth mingled.* | 

Yet a few months, and the quiet village of Toddington, in Bed- 
fordshire, witnessed a still sadder funeral. Near that village stood — 
an ancient and stately hall, the seat of the Wentworths. The tran- — 
sept of the parish church had long been their burial place. To that — 
burial place, in the spring which followed the death of Monmouth, — 
was borne the coffin of the young Baroness Wentworth of Nettle-— 
stede. Her family reared a sumptuous mausoleum over her remains: — 
but a less costly memorial of her was long contemplated with far 
deeper interest. Her name, carved by the hand of him whom she 
loved too well, was, a few years ago, still discernible on a tree in the 
adjoining park. 

it was not by Lady Wentworth alone that the memory of Mon-— 
mouth was cherished with idolatrous fondness. His hold on the 
* hearts of the people lasted till the generation which had seen him 
had passed away. MRibbands, buckles, and other trifling articles of 
apparel which he had worn, were treasured up as precious relics by — 
those who had fought under him at Sedgemoor. Old men who long” 
survived him desired, when they were dying. that these trinkets 
might be buried with them. One button of goid thread which nar- — 


— = 


= 


1e_-7 See | e 


*I cannot refrain from expressing my disgust at the barbarous stupidity 
which has transformed this most interesting little church into the likeness of a 
meeting-house in a manufacturing town, ’ 


ais 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 407 


rowly escaped this fate may still be seen at a house which overlooks 


the field of battle. Nay, such was the devotion of the people to their 


unhappy favourite that, in the face of the strongest evidence by 


which the fact of a death was ever verified, many continued to cher- 
ish a hope that he was still living, and that he would again appear in 
arms. <A person, it was said, who was remarkably like Monmouth, 
had sacrificed himself to save the Protestant hero. The vulgar long 
continued, at every important crisis, to whisper that the time was at 
hand, and that King Monmouth would soon show himself. In1686, a 
knave who had pretended to be the Duke, and had levied contributions 


‘in several villages of Wiltshire, was apprehended, and whipped from 


Newgate to Tyburn. In 1698, when England had long enjoyed con- 
stitutional freedom under a new dynasty, the son of an innkeeper 
passed himself on the yeomanry of Sussex as their beloved Mon- 


- mouth, and defrauded many who were by no means of the lowest 


class. Five hundred pounds were collected for him. The farmers 


provided him with a horse. Their-wives sent him baskets of chick- 


ens and ducks, and were lavish, it was said, of favours of a more 
tender kind; for in gallantry at least, the counterfeit was a not un- 
worthy representative of the original. When this impostor was 
thrown into prison for his fraud, his followers maintained him in 


‘luxury. Several of them appeared at the bar to countenance him 


_ when he was tried at the Horsham assizes. So long did this delu- 


» Dict. 


sion last that, when George the Third had been some years on the 
English throne, Voltaire thought it necessary gravely to confute 
the hypothesis that the man in the iron mask was the Duke of Mon- 
mouth.* 

It is, perhaps, a fact scarcely less remarkable that, to this day, 
the inhabitants of some parts of the West of England, when any bill 


* Observator, August 1, 1685; Gazette de France, Nov. 2, 1686; Letter from 
Humphrey Wanley, dated Aug. 25, 1698, in the Aubre) Collection: Voltaire, 
Phil: There are, in the Pepysian Collection, several ballads written after 


_ Monmouth’s death which represent him as living, and predict his speedy re- 


turn. I will give two specimens. 


‘Though this is a dismal story 
Of the fall of my design, 
Yet I'll come again in glory. 
If I live till eighty-nine: 
For I'll have a stronger army 

And of ammunition store.” 


‘Then shall Monmouth in his glories 
Unto his English friends appear, 
And will stifle all such stories 
As are vended everywhere. 


‘*They’ll see I was not so degraded, 
To be taken f Sapte dirg pease, 
Or in a cock of hay up braided: 
What strange stories now are these!” 


is 
Aa 


408... HISTORY OF ENGLAND. — ss 


affecting their interest is before the House of Lords, think them-— 
selves entitled to claim the help of the Duke of Buccleuch, the 
descendant of the unfortunate leader for whom their ancestors — 
bled. : 
The history of Monmouth would alone suffice to refute the impu- 
tation of inconstancy which is so frequently thrown on the common 
people. The common people are sometimes inconstant; for they are 
human beings. But that they are inconstant as compared with the 
educated classes, with aristocracies, or with princes, may be confi- 
dently denied. It would be easy to name demagogues whose popu- 
larity has remained undiminished while sovereigns and parliaments — 
have withdrawn their confidence from a long succession of statesmen. — 
When Swift had survived his faculties many years, the Irish popu- — 
lace still continued to light bonfires on his birthday, in commemora- 
tion of the services which they fancied that he had rendered to his 
country when his mind was in full vigour. While seven adminis- — 
trations were raised to power and hurled from it in consequence of 
court intrigues or of changes in the sentiments of the higher classes — 
of society, the profligate Wilkes retained his hold on the affections © 
of a rabble whom he pillaged and ridiculed. Politicians, who, in © 
1807, had sought to curry favour with George the Third by defend- © 
ing Caroline of Brunswick, were not ashamed, in 1820, to curry 
favour with George the Fourth by persecuting her. But in 1820, as — 
in 1807, the whole body of working men was fanatically devoted to — 
her cause. So it was with Monmouth. In 1680, he had been adored ~ 
alike by the gentry and by the peasantry of the West. In 1685 he — 
came again. To the gentry he had become an object of aversion: — 
but by the peasantry he was still loved with a love strong as death, — 
with a love not to be extinguished by misfortunes or faults, by the — 
flight from Sedgemoor, by the letter from Ringwood, or by the tears 
and abject supplications at Whitehall. The charge which may with ~ 
justice be brought against the common people is, not that they are © 
inconstant, but that they almost invariably choose their favourite so © 
ill that their constancy is a vice and not a virtue. 

While the execution of Monmouth occupied the thoughts of vhe — 
Londoners, the counties which had risen against the government ~ 
were enduring all that a ferocious soldiery could inflict. Feversham ~ 
had been summoned to the court, where honours and rewards which ~ 
he little deserved awaited him. He was made a Knight of the Gar- ~ 
ter and Captain of the first and most lucrative troop of Life Guards: — 
but Court and City laughed at his military exploits; and the wit of — 
Buckingham gave forth its last feeble flash at the expense of the 
general who had won a battle in bed.* Feversham left in command 
at Bridgewater Colonel Percy Kirke, a military adventurer whose 
vices had been developed by the worst of all schools, Tangier. Kirke - 


* London Gazette, August 3, 1685; the Battle of Sedgemoor, & Farce. 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. | 409 


had during some years commanded the garrison of that town, and 
_ had been constantly employed in hostilities against tribes of foreign 


barbarians, ignorant of the laws which regulate the warfare of civil- 
ized and Christian nations. Within the ramparts of his fortress he - 
was a despotic prince. The only check on his tyranny was the fear 
of being called to account by a distant and a careless government. 
He might therefore safely proceed to the most audacious excesses of 
rapacity, licentiousness, and cruelty. He lived with boundless dis- 


‘soluteness, and procured by extortion the means of indulgence. No 


goods could be sold till Kirke had had the refusal of them. No 
question of right could be decided till Kirke had been bribed. Once, 
merely from a malignant whim, he staved all the wine in a vintner’s 
cellar. On another occasion he drove all the Jews from Tangier. 
Two of them he sent to the Spanish Inquisition, which forthwith 
burned them. Under this iron domination scarce a complaint was 
heard; for hatred was effectually kept down by terror. Two per- 
sons who had been refractory were found murdered; and it was 
universally believed that they had been slain by Kirke’s order. 
When his soldiers displeased him he flogged them with merciless se- 


verity: but he indemnified them by permitting them to sleep on 


watch, to reel drunk about the streets, to rob, beat, and insult the 
merchants and the labourers. 
When Tangier was abandoned, Kirke returned to England. He 


still continued to command his old soldiers, who were designated 


sometimes as the First Tangier Regiment, and sometimes as Queen 
Catharine’s Regiment. As they had been levied for the purpose of 


_ waging war on an infidel nation, they bore on their flag a Christian 


emblem, the Paschal Lamb. In allusion to this device, and with a 


_ bitterly ironical meaning, these men, the rudest and most ferocious 
_ inthe English army, were called Kirke’s Lambs. The regiment, now 
_ the second of the line, still retains this ancient badge, which is how- 


¥ 


ever thrown into the shade by decorations honourably earned in 
Egypt, in Spain, and in the heart of Asia.* 

Such was the captain and such the soldiers who were now let 
loose on the people of Somersetshire. From Bridgewater Kirke 


marched tg Taunton. He was accompanied by two carts filled with 


wounded rebels whose gashes had not been dressed, and by a lon 
drove of prisoners on foot, who were chained two and two. Severa 
of these he hanged as soon ashe reached Taunton, without the form 


of atrial. They were not suffered even to take leave of their nearest 


felations. The signpost of the White Heart Inn served for a gal- 


4 


a 


lows. It is said that the work of death went on in sight of the win- 
dows where the officers of the Tangier regiment were carousing, and 
that at every health a wretch was turned off. When the legs of the 


* Pepys’s Diary, kept at Tangier; Historical Records of the Second or Queen’s 
Royal Regiment of Foot. 


410 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 3 


dying man quivered in the last agony, the colonel ordered the drums — 
to strike up. He would give the rebels, he said, music to their danc- 
ing. The tradition runs that one of the captives was not even allowed ~ 
the indulgence of a speedy death. Twice he was suspended from 
the signpost, and twice cut down. Twice he was asked if he re- 
pented of his treason, and twice he replied that, if the thing were to 
do again, he would do it. Then he was tied up for the last time. 
So many dead bodies were quartered that the executioner stood ankle 
deep in blood. He was assisted by a poor man whose loyalty was 
suspected, and who was compelled to ransom his own life by chr 
the remains of his friends in pitch. The peasant who had consente 
to perform this hideous office afterwards returned to his plough. But 
a mark like that of Cain was upon him. He was known through his 
village by the horrible name of Tom Boilman. The rustics long con- 
tinued to relate that, though he had, by his sinful and shameful deed, 
saved himself from the vengeance of the Lambs, he had not escaped 
the vengeance of a higher power. In a great storm he fled for shelter 
under an oak, and was there struck dead by lightning.* J 

The number of those who were thus butchered cannot now be 
ascertained. Nine were entered in the parish registers of Taunton: 
but those registers contained the names of such only as had Christian 
burial. Those who were hanged in chains, and those whose heads 
and limbs were sent to the neighbouring villages, must have been 
much more numerous. It was believed in London, at the time, that 
Kirke put a hundred captives to death during the week which fol- 
lowed the battle. + 

Cruelty, however, was not this man’s only passion. He loved 
money; and was no novice in thearts of extortion. A safe conduct 
might be bought of him for thirty or forty pounds; and such a safe 
conduct, though of no value in law, enabled the purchaser to pass the 
post of the Lambs without molestation, to reach a seaport, and to fly 
to a foreign country. The ships which were bound for New England 
were crowded at this juncture with so many fugitives from Sedge- — 
moor that there was great danger lest the water and provisions should 
fail.t 

Kirke was also, in his own coarse and ferocious way, a man of 
pleasure; and nothing is more probable than that he employed his 
power for the purpose of gratifying his licentious appetites. It was 
reported that he conquered the virtue of a beautiful woman by prom- 
ising to spare the life of one to whom she was strongly attached, and 
that, after she had yielded, he showed her suspended on the gallows ~ 
the lifeless remains of him for whose sake she had sicrificed her 


~- 


* Bloody Assizes; Burnet, i. 647; Luttrell’s Diary, July 15, 1685; Locke’s West 
ern Rebellion; Toulmin’s History of Taunton, edited by Savage. ; 
+ Luttrell’s Diary, July 15, 1685; Toulmin’s Hist. of Taunton. ta 
$ Oldmixon, 705; Life and Errors of John Dunton, chap. vii. 4 
r 


+ 


~ 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 411 


honour. This tale an impartial judge must reject. It is unsupported 
wy proof. ‘The earliest authority for it is a poem written by Pomfret. 
rhe respectable historians of that age, while they speak with just 
severity of the crimes of Kirke, either omit all mention of this most 
atrocious crime, or mention it as a thing rumoured but not proved. 
Those who tell. the story tell it with such variations as deprive it of 
all title to credit. Some lay the scene at Taunton, some at Exeter. 


Some make the heroine of the tale a maiden, some a married woman. 


The relation for whom the shameful ransom was paid is described 
by some as her father, by some as her brother, and by some as her 
husband. Lastly the story is one which, long before Kirke was 
born, had been told of many other oppressors, and had become a 
favourite theme of novelists and dramatists. Two politicians of the 
fifteenth century, Rhynsault, the favourite of Charles the Bold of 
Burgundy, and Oliver le Dain, the favourite of Lewis the Eleventh 


of France, had been accused of the same crime. Cintio had taken it 


for the subject of aromance. Whetstone had made out of Cintio’s 
narrative the rude play of Promos and Cassandra; and Shakspeare 
‘had borrowed from Whetstone the plot of the noble tragicomedy of 
Measure for Measure. As Kirke was not the first, so he was not the 
last, to whom this excess of wickedness was popularly imputed. 


During the reaction which followed the Jacobin tyranny in France, 


_ @ very similar charge was brought against Joseph Lebon, one of the 
most odious agents of the Committee of Public Safety, and, after en- 
quiry, was admitted even by his prosecutors to be unfounded.* 


% 


The government was dissatisfied with Kirke, not on account of 


the barbarity with which he had treated his needy prisoners, but on 


account of the interested lenity which he had shown to rich. delin- 


“quents.t He was soon recalled from the West. A less irregular and 


“more cruel massacre was about to be perpetrated. The vengeance 


_ was deferred during some weeks. It was thought desirable that the 


, 


Western Circuit should not begin till the other circuits had termi- 
nated. In the meantime the gaols of Somersetshire and Dorsetshire 
were filled with thousands of captives. The chief friend and pro- 
tector of these unhappy men in their extremity was one who abhorred 


*The silence of Whig writers so credulous and so malevolent as Oldmixon 
and the compilers of the Western Martyrology would alone seem to me to settle 


the question. It also deserves to be remarked that the story of Rhynsault is 


told by Steele in the Spectator, No. 491. Surely itis hardly possible to believe 


that, if acrime exactly resembling that of Rhynsault had been committed within 


» 


4) 
5 
me 
“Ss 
. 


living memory in England by an officer of James the Second, Steele, who. was 
indiscreetly and unseasonably forward to display his Whiggism, would have 
no piasion to that fact. For the case of Lebon, see the Moniteur, 4 Messi- 
or, Van 3. 
+ Sunderland to Kirke, July 14 and 28, 1685. ‘‘ His Majesty,’ says Sunderland, 
“commands me to signify to you his dislike of these py dat and desires 
ou to take care that no person concerned in the rebellion be at large.” It is 
ut just to add that, in the same letter, Kirke is blamed for allowing his soldiers 
to live at free quarter. 


412 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


their religious and political opinions, one whose order they hated, — 
and to whom they had done unprovoked wrong, Bishop Ken. That 
good prelate used all his influence to soften the goalers, and retrench- 
ed from his own episcopal state that he might be able to make some 
addition to the coarse and scanty fare of those who had defaced his 
beloved Cathedral. His conduct on this occasion was of a piece with 
his whole life. His intellect was indeed darkened by many super- 
stitions and prejudices: but his moral character, when impartially re- 
viewed, sustains a comparison with any in ecclesiastical history, and 
seems to approach, as near as human infirmity permits, to the ideal 
perfection of Christian virtue.* 

His labour of love was of no long duration. A rapid and effectual 
gaol delivery was at hand. Early in September, Jeffreys, accompa- 
nied by four other judges, set out on that circuit of which the memory 
will last as long as our race and language. The officers who com-. 
manded the troops in the districts through which his course lay had 
orders to furnish him with whatever military aid he might require. 
His ferocious temper needed no spur; yet a spur was applied. The 
health and spirits of the Lord Keeper had given way. He had been 
deeply mortified by the coldness of the King and by the insolence of 
the Chief Justice, and could find little consolation in looking back on 
a life, not indeed blackened by any atrocious crime, but sullied by 
cowardice, selfishness, and servility. So deeply was the unhappy 
man humbled that, when he appeared for the last time in Westmin- 
ster Hall, he took with him a nosegay to hide his face, because, as he 
afterwards owned, he could not bear the eyes of the bar and of the 
audience. ‘The prospect of his approaching end seems to have in- 
spired him with unwonted courage. He determined to discharge 
his conscience, requested an audience of the King, spoke earnestly 
of the dangers inseparable from violent and arbitrary counsels, 
and condemned the lawless cruelties which the soldiers had com: 
mitted in Somersetshire. He soon after retired from London to die. 
He breathed his last a few days after the Judges set out for the West. 
It was immediately notified to Jeffreys that he might expect the Great 
Seal as the reward of faithful and vigorous service.t 


* T should be very glad if I could give credit to the popular story that Ken 
immediately after the battle of Sedgemoor, represented to the chiefs of the royal 
army the illegality of military executions. He would, I doubt not, have exerted 

ll his influence on the side of law and of mercy, if he had been present. But 
there is no trustworthy evidence that he was then in the West at all. Indeed 
what we know about his proceedings at this time amounts very nearly to proof 
ofan alibi. It is certain from the Journals of the House of Lords that, on the 
Thursday before the battle, he was at Westminster; it is equally certain that, 
on the Monday after the battle, he was with Monmouth in the Tower; and, in 
bee age, a journey from London to Bridgewater and back again was no light 

ing. 

+ North’s Life of Guildford, 260, 263, 273; Mackintosh’s View of the Reign of 
James the Second, page 16, note; Letter of J effreys to Sunderland, Sept. 5, 1865. 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 415 


At Winchester the Chief Justice first opened his commission. 
Hampshire had not been the theatre of war; but many of the van- 
quished rebels had, like their leader, fled thither. Two of them, 
John Hickes, a Nonconformist divine, and Richard Nelthorpe, a 
lawyer who had been outlawed for taking part in the Rye House 
plot, had sought refuge at the house of Alice, widow of John Lisle. 
John Lisle had sate in the Long Parliament and in the High Court of 
Justice, had been a commissioner of the Great Seal in the days of the 
Commonwealth, and had been created a Lord by Cromwell. The 
titles given by the Protector had not been recognised by any govern- 
ment which had ruled England since the downfall of his house; but 
they appear to have been often used in conversation even by Royal- 
ists. John Lisle’s widow was therefore commonly known as,the 
Lady Alice. She was related to many respectable, and to some noble, 
families; and she was generally esteemed even by the Tory gentle- 
men of her country. For it was well known to them that she had 
deeply regretted some violent acts in which her husband had borne a 
part, that she had shed bitter tears for Charles the First, and that she 
had protected and relieved many Cavaliers in their distress. The 
same womanly kindness, which had led her to befriend the Royalists 
in their time of trouble, would not suffer her to refuse a meal and a 
hiding place to the wretched men who now entreated her to protect 
them. She took them into her house, set meat and drink before 
them, and showed them where they might take rest. The next morn- 
ing her dwelling was surrounded by soldiers. Strict search was 
made. Hickes was found concealed in the malthouse, and Nelthorpe 
in thechimney. If Lady Alice knew her guests to have been con 
cerned in the insurrection, she was undoubtedly guilty of what in strict 
ness wasa capital crime. For the law of principal and accessory, as re 
spects high treason, then was, and is to this day, ina state disgraceful t: 
English jurisprudence. In cases of felony, a distinction, founded ox. 
justice and reason, is made between the principal and the accessory 
after the fact. He who conceals from justice one whom he knows 
to be a murderer is liable to punishment, but not to the punishment 
of murder. He, on the other hand, who shelters one whom he knows 
to be a traitor is, according to all our jurists, guilty of high treason. 
It is unnecessary to point out the absurdity and cruelty of a law 
which includes under the same definition, and visits with the same 
penalty, offences lying at the opposite extremes of the scale of guilt. 
The feeling which makes the most loyal subject shrink from the 
thought of giving up to a shameful death the rebel who, vanquished, 
hunted down, and in mortal agony, begs for a morsel of bread and a 
cup of water, may be a weakness; but it is surely a weakness very 
nearly allied to virtue, a weakness which, constituted as human 
beings are, we can hardly eradicate from the mind without cradicat- 
ing many noble and benevolent sentiments. A wise and good ruler 
may not think it right to sanction this weakness; but he will gener- 

M. E. i.—14 


si, 


414 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


ally connive at it, or punish it very tenderly. In no case will he 
treat it as a crime of the blackest dye. Whether Flora Macdonald 
was justified in concealing the attainted heir of the Stuarts, whether 
a brave soldier of our own time was justified in assisting the escape 
of Lavalette, are questions on which casuists may differ: but to class 
such actions with the crimes of Guy Faux and Fieschi is an outrage 
to humanity and common sense. Such, however, is the classification 
of our law. Itis evident that nothing but a lenient administration 
could make such a state of the law endurable. And it is just to say 
that, during many generations, no English government, save one, 
has treated with rigour persons guilty merely of harbouring defeated 
and flying insurgents. To women especially has been granted, by a 
kind of tacit prescription, the right of indulging, in the midst of 
havoc and vengeance, that compassion which is the most endearing of 
all their charms. Since the beginning of the great civil war, numer- 
ous rebels, some of them far more important than Hickes or Nel- 
thorpe, have been protected from the severity of victorious govern- 
ments by female adroitness and generosity But no English ruler 
who has been thus bafiled, the savage and implacable James alone 
excepted, has had the barbarity even to think of putting a lady to a 
cruel and shameful death for so venial and amiable a transgression. 

Odious as the law was, it was strained for the purpose of destroying 
Alice Lisle. She could not, according to the doctrine laid down by 
the highest authority, be convicted till after the conviction of the 
rebels whom she had harboured.* She was, however, set to the bar 
before either Hickes or Nelthorpe had been tried: It was no easy 
matter in such a case to obtain a verdict for the crown. The wit- 
nesses prevaricated. The jury, consisting of the principal gentlemen 
of Hampshire, shrank from the thought of sending a fellow crea- 
ture to the stake for conduct which seemed deserving rather of praise 
than of blame. Jeffreys was beside himself with fury. This was 
the first case of treason on the circuit; and there seemed to be a strong 
probability that his prey would escape him. He stormed, cursed, 
and swore in language which no wellbred man would have used ata 
race or a cockfight. One witnessnamed Dunne, partly from concern 
for Lady Alice, and partly from fright at the threats and maledic- 
tions of the Chief Justice, entirely lost his head, and at last stood 
silent. ‘‘Oh how hard the truth is,” said Jeffreys, ‘‘to come out of 
a lying Presbyterian knave.” 'The witness, after a pause of some 
minutes, stammered a few unmeaning words. ‘‘ Was there ever,” 
exclaimed the judge, with an oath, ‘‘ was there ever such a vil- 
lain on the face of the earth? Dost thou believe that there is 
a God? Dost thou believe in hell fire? Of all the witnesses 
that I ever met with I never saw thy fellow.” Still the poor 
man, scared out of his senses, remained mute; and again Jef- 


Sey Se 


* See the preamble of the Act of Parliament reversing her attainder. 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 415 


freys burst forth. ‘‘I hope, gentlemen of the jury, that you take 
notice of the horrible carriage of this fellow. Howcan one help ab- 
horring both these men and their religion? A Turk isa saint to such 
a fellow as this. A Pagan would be ashamed of such villany. Oh 
blessed Jesus! Whata generation of vipers do we live among!” ‘TI 
cannot tell what to say, my Lord,” faltered Dunne. The judge again 
broke forth into a volley of oaths. ‘‘Was there ever,” he cried, 
“‘such an impudent rascal? Hold the candle to him that we may 
see his brazen face. You, gentlemen, that are of counsel for the 
crown, see that an information for perjury be preferred against this 
fellow.” After the witnesses had been thus handled, the Lady Alice 
was called on for her defence. She began by saying, what may pos- 
sibly have been true, that though she knew Hickes to be in trouble 
when she took him in, she did not know or suspect that he had been 
concerned in the rebellion. He was a divine, a man of peace. It 
had, therefore, never occurred to her that he could have borne arms 
against the government; and she had supposed that he wished to con- 
ceal himself because warrants were out against him for field preach- 
ing. The Chief Justice began to storm. ‘‘But I will tell you. 
There is not one of those lying, snivelling, canting Presbyterians but, 
one way or another, had a hand in the rebellion. Presbytery has all 
manner of villany init. Nothing but Presbytery could have made 
Dunne such a rogue. Show me a Presbyterian; and I'll show thee a 
lying knave.” He summed up in the same style, declaimed during 


an hour against Whigs and Dissenters, and reminded the jury that 


the prisoner’s busband had borne a part in the death of Charles the 
First, a fact which bad not been proved by any testimony, and 
which, if it had been proved, would have been utterly irrelevant to 
the issue. The jury retired, and remained long in consultation. 
The judge grew impatient. He could not conceive, he said, how, in 
so plain a case, they should even have left the box. He sent a mes- 
senger to tell them that, if they did not instantly return, he would 
adjourn the court and lock them up all night. Thus put to the tor- 
ture, they came, but came to say that they doubted whether the 
charge had been made out. Jeffreys expostulated with them vehe- 
mently, and, after another consultation, they gave a reluctant verdict 
of Guilty. 

On the following morning sentence was pronounced. Jeffreys gave 
directions that Alice Lisle should be burned alive that very afternoon. 
This excess of barbarity moved the pity and indignation even of the 
class which was most devoted to the crown. The clergy of Win- 
chester Cathedral remonstrated with the Chief Justice, who, brutal as 
he was, was not mad enough to risk a quarre] on such a subject with 
a body so much respected by the Tory party. He consented to put 
off the execution five days. During that time the friends of the 
prisoner besought James to be merciful. Ladies of high rank inter- 
ceded for her. Feversham, whose recent victory had increased his 


416 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


influence at court, and who, it is said, had been bribed to take the 
compassionate side, spoke in her favour. Clarendon, the King’s 
brother in law, pleaded her cause. But all was vain. The utmost 
that could be obtained was that her sentence should be commuted 
from burning to beheading. She was put to death on a scaffold in 
the marketplace of Winchester, and underwent her fate with serene 
courage. * 

In Hampshire Alice Lisle was tne only victim: but, on the day fol- 
lowing her execution, Jeffreys reached Dorchester, the principal town 
of the county in which Monmouth had landed; and the judicial mas- 
sacre began. The court was hung, by order of the Chief Justice, 
with scarlet; and this innovation seemed to the multitude to indicate 
a bloody purpose. It was also rumoured that, when the clergyman 
who preached the assize sermon enforced the duty of mercy, the fero- 
cious mouth of the Judge was distorted by an ominous grin. These 
things made men augur ill of what was to follow.+ 

More than three hundred prisoners were to be tried. The work 
seemed heavy; but Jeffreys had a contrivance for making it light. 
He let it be understood that the only chance of obtaining pardon or 
respite was to plead guilty. Twenty-nine persons, who put them- 
selves on their country and were convicted, were ordered to be tied 
up without delay. The remaining prisoners pleaded guilty by scores. 
Two hundred and ninety-two received sentence of death. The whole 
number hanged in Dorsetshire amounted to seventy-four. 

From Dorchester Jeffreys proceeded to Exeter. The civil war had 
barely grazed the frontier of Devonshire. Here, therefore, compara- 
tively few persons were capitally punished. Somersetshire, the chief 
seat of the rebellion, had been reserved for the last and most fearful 
vengeance. In this county two hundred and thirty-three prisoners 
were ina few days hanged, drawn, and quartered. At every spot 
where two roads met, on every marketplace, on the green of every 
large village which had furnished Monmouth with soldiers, ironed 
corpses clattering in the wind, or heads and quarters stuck on poles, 
poisoned the air, and made the traveller sick with horror. In many 
parishes the peasantry could not assemble in the house of God with- 
out seeing the ghastly face of a neighbour grinning at them over the 
porch. The Chief Justice was all himself. His spirits rose higher 
and higher as the work went on. He laughed, shouted, joked, and 
swore in such a way that many thought him drunk from morning to 


7 


night. But in him it was not easy to distinguish the madness pro- - 


duced by evil passions from the madness produced by brandy. A 
prisoner aflirmed that the witnesses who appeared against him were 


* Trial of Alice Lisle in the Collection of State Trials; Act of the First of Wil- 
liam and Mary for annulling and making void the Attainder of Alice Lisle, 
widow; Burnet, i. 649; Caveat against the Whigs. 

+ Bloody Assizes. 


_~ = 
a ; ‘i 
# i; ss 


an 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. AIT 


not entitled to credit. One of them, he said, was a Papist, and an. 


other a prostitute. ‘‘ Thou impudent rebel,” exclaimed the Judge, 
“to reflect on the King’s evidence! I see thee, villain, I see thee al- 
ready with the halter round thy neck.” Another produced testimony 
that he was a good Protestant. ‘‘ Protestant!” said Jeffreys; ‘‘ you 
mean Presbyterian. Ill hold you a wager of it. I can smell a Pres- 
byterian forty miles.” One wretched man moved the pity even of 
bitter Tories. ‘‘My Lord,” they said, ‘‘ this poor creature is on the 
parish.” ‘‘ Do not trouble yourselves,” said the Judge, ‘‘I will ease 
the parish of the burden.” It was not only against the prisoners that 
his fury broke forth. Gentlemen and noblemen of high considera- 
tion and stainless loyalty, who ventured to bring to his notice any ex- 
tenuating circumstance, were almost sure to receive what he called, 
in the coarse dialect, which he had learned in the pothouses of White- 
chapel, a lick with the rough side of his tongue. Lord Stawell, a 
Tory peer, who could not conceal his horror at the remorseless man- 
ner in which his poor neighbours were butchered, was punished by 
having a corpse suspended in chains at his park gate.* In such spec- 
tacles originated many tales of terror, which were long told over the 
cider by the Christmas fires of the farmers of Somersetshire. With- 
in the last forty years, peasants, in some districts, well knew the ac- 
cursed spots, and passed them unwillingly after sunset. + 

Jeffreys boasted that he had hanged more traitors than all his pred- 
ecessors together since the Conquest. It is certain that the number 
of persons whom he put to death in one month, and in one shire, very 
much exceeded the number of all the political offenders who have 
been put to death in our island since the Revolution. The rebellions 
of 1715 and 1745 were of longer duration, of wider extent, and of 
more formidable aspect than that which was put down at Sedgemoor. 
It has not been generally thought that, either after the rebellion of 
1715, or after the rebellion of 1745, the House of Hanover erred on the 
side of clemency. Yet all the executions of 1715 and 1745 added to- 
gether will appear to have been few indeed when compared with 
those which disgraced the Bloody Assizes. The number of the 
rebels whom Jeffreys hanged on this circuit was three hundred and 
twenty. 

Bich Ritce must have excited disgust even if the sufferers had 
been generally odious. But they were, for the most part, men of 
blameless life, and of high religious profession. They were regarded 
by themselves, and by a large proportion of their neighbours, not as 


* Locke’s Western Rebellion. 

+ This I can attest from my own childish recollections. 
_t Lord Lonsdale says seven hundred; Burnet six hundred. Ihave followed 
the list which the Judges sent tothe Treasury, and which may still be seen there 
in the letter book of 1685. See the Bloody Assizes; Locke’s Western Rebellion; 
ay Panegyric on Lord Jeffreys; Burnet, i. 648; Eachard, iii. 775; Oldmixon, 
(Uo, : 


e 
a ‘ 
\ 


418 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. - 


wrongdoers, but as martyrs who sealed with blood the truth of the 
Protestant religion. Very few of the convicts professed any repent- 
ance for what they had done. Many, animated by the old Puritan 
spirit, met death, not merely with fortitude, but with exultation. It 
was in vain that the ministers of the Established Church lectured 
them on the guilt of rebellion and on the importance of priestly abso- 
lution. The claim of the King to unbounded authority in things 
temporal and the claim of the clergy to the spiritual power of bind- 
ing and loosing, moved the bitter scorn of the intrepid sectaries. 
Some of them composed hymns in the dungeon, and chaunted them 
on the fatal sledge. Christ, they sang while they were undressing for 
the butchery, would soon come to rescue Zion and to make war on 
Babylon, would set up his standard, would blow his trumpet, and 
would requite his foes tenfold for all the evil which had been inflict- 
ed on his servants. The dying words of these men were noted down. 
their farewell letters were kept as treasures; and, in this way, with 
the help of some invention and exaggeration, was formed a copious 
supplement to the Marian martyrology.* 

A few cases deserve special mention. Abraham Holmes, a retired 
officer of the parliamentary army, and one of those zealots who would 
own no king but King Jesus, had been taken at Sedgemoor. His 
arm had been frightfully mangled and shattered in the battle; and, 
as no surgeon was at hand, the stout old soldier amputated it him- 
self. Hewas carried up to London, and examined by the King in 
Council, but would make no submission. ‘‘Il am an aged man,” he 
said; ‘‘and what remains to me of life is not worth a falsehood or a 
baseness. I have always been a republican; and I am so still.” He 
was sent back to the West and hanged. The people remarked with 
awe and wonder that the beasts which were to drag him to the gal- 
lows became restive and went back. Holmes himself doubted not 
that the Angel of the Lord, as in the old time, stood in the way 
sword in hand, invisible to human eyes, but visible to the inferior 
animals. ‘‘ Stop, gentlemen,” he cried: ‘‘let me go on foot. There 
is more in this than you think. Remember how the ass saw him 
whom the prophet could not see.” He walked manfully to the gal- 
lows, harangued the people with a smile, prayed fervently that God 
would hasten the downfall of Antichrist and the deliverance of Eng- 
-Jand, and went up the ladder with an apology for mounting so awk- 
wardly. ‘‘ You see,” he said, ‘‘ I have but one arm.” 

Not less courageously died Christopher Battiscombe, a young — 
Templar of good family and fortune, who, at Dorchester, an agreea- 


* Some of the prayers, exhortations, and hymns of the sufferers will befoundin ~ 
the Bloody Assizes. 

+ Bloody Assizes; Locke’s Western Rebellion; Lord Lonsdale’s Memoirs; - 
Account of the Battle of Sedgemoor in the Hardwicke Papers. The story inthe 
Life of James the Second, ii. 48, is not taken from the King’s manuscripts, and 
sufficiently refutes itself. 


i v= 


. =. 
de 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 419 


_ ble provincial town proud ‘of its taste and refinement, was regarded 


by all as the model of a fine gentleman. Great interest was made to 
save him. It was believed through the West of England that he was 
engaged to a young lady of gentle blood, the sister of the Sheriff, 
that she threw herself at the feet of Jéffreys to beg for mercy, and 
that Jeffreys drove her from him with a jest so hideous that to repeat 


it would be an offence against decency and humanity. Her lover 


suffered at Lyme piously and courageously.* 

A still deeper interest was excited by the fate of two gallant broth- 
ers, William and Benjamin Hewling. They were young, handsome, 
accomplished, and well connected. Their maternal grandfather was 
named Kiffin. He was one of the first merchants in London, and 
was generally considered as the head of the Baptists. The Chief 
Justice behaved to William Hewling on the trial with characteristic 
brutality. ‘‘ You have a grandfather,” he said, ‘‘ who deserves to be 
hanged as richly as you.” ‘The poor lad, who was only nineteen, 
suffered death with so much meekness and fortitude, that an officer 
of the army who attended the execution, and ‘who had made himself 
remarkable by rudeness and severity, was strangely melted, and said, 
“1 do not believe that my Lord Chief Justice himself could be proof 
against this.” Hopes were entertained that Benjamin would be par- 
doned. One victim of tender years was surely enough for one house 
to furnish. Even Jeffreys was, or pretended to be, inclined to len- 
ity. The truth was that one of his kinsmen, from whom he had large 
expectations, and whom, therefore, he could not treat as he generally 
treated intercessors, pleaded strongly for the afflicted family. Time 
was allowed for a reference to London. The sister of the prisoner 
went to Whitehall with a petition. Many courtiers wished her suc- 
cess; and Churchill, among whose numerous faults cruelty had no 
place, obtained admittance for her. ‘‘I wish well to your suit with 
all my heart,” he said, as they stood together in the antechamber; 
“but do not flatter yourself with hopes. This marble,”—and he laid 
his hand on the chimneypiece,—‘‘is not harder than the King.” 
The prediction proved true. James was inexorable. Benjamin 
Hewling died with dauntless courage, amidst lamentations in which 
the soldiers who kept guard round the gallows could not refrain from 
joining. + 

Yet those rebels who were doomed to death were less to be pitied 
than some of the survivors. Several prisoners to whom Jeffreys was 
unable to bring home the charge of high treason were convicted of 


* Bloody Assizes: Locke’s Western Rebellion; Humble Petition of Widows 
and Fatherless Children in the West of England; Panegyric on Lord Jeffreys. 

+ As to the Hewlings, I have followed Kiffin’s Memoirs, and Mr. Hewling Lu- 
gon’s narrative, which will be found in the second edition of the Hughes Cor- 
respondence, vol. ii. Appendix. The accounts in Locke’s Western Rebellion 
ad in the Panegyric on Jeffreys are full of errors. Great part of the account 
3 the Bloody Assizes was written by Kiffin, and agrees wordfor word with his 

emoirs. 


420 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


misdemeanors, and were sentenced to scourging not less terrible than 
that which Oates had undergone. A woman for some idle-words, 
such as had been uttered by half the women in the districts where 


the war had raged, was condemned to be whipped through all the - 


market towns in the county of Dorset. She suffered part of her 
punishment before Jeffreys returned to London; but, when he was 
no longer in «he West, the gaolers, with the humane connivance of 
the magistrates, took on themselves the responsibility of sparing her 

any further torture. A still more frightful sentence was passed on a 
ralihnted Tutchin, who was tried for seditious words. He was, as 

usual, interrupted in his defence by ribaldry and scurrility from the 
judgment seat. ‘‘ You are a rebel; and all your family have been 
rebels since Adam. They tell me that you are a poet. Il cap 
verses with you. The sentence was that the boy should be impris- 

oned seven years, and should, during that period, be flogged through 
every market town in Dorsetshire every year. ‘The women in the 
galleries burst into tears. The clerk of the arraigns stood up in great 
disorder. ‘‘My Lord,” said he, ‘‘ the prisoner is very young. There 
are many market towns in our county. The sentence amounts to 

whipping once a fortnight for seven years.” ‘‘If he is a young 
man,” said Jeffreys, ‘‘he is an old rogue. Ladies, you do not know 
the villain as well as IT do. The punishment is not half bad enough 
for him. All the interest in England shall not alter it.” Tutchin 
in his despair petitioned, and probably with sincerity, that he might 
be hanged. Fortunately for him he was, just at this conjuncture, 

taken ill of the smallpox and given over. As it seemed highly im- 

probable that the sentence would ever be executed, the Chief Justice 

consented to remit it, in return for a bribe which reduced the prisoner 
to poverty. The temper of Tutchin, not originally very mild, was 

exusperated to madness by what he had undergone. He lived to be 

known as one of the most acrimonious and pertinacious enemies of 
the House of Stuart and of the Tory party.* 

The number of prisoners whom Jeffreys transported was eight 
hundred and forty-one. These men, more wretched than their asso- 
ciates who suffered death, were distributed into gangs, and bestowed 
on persons who enjoyed favour at court. The conditions of the gift 
were that the convicts should be carried beyond sea as slaves, that 
they should not be emancipated for ten years, and that the place of 
their banishment should be some West Indian island. ‘This last 
article was studiously framed for the purpose of aggravating the 
misery of the exiles. In New England or New Jersey they would 
have found a population kindly disposed to them and a climate not 
unfavourable to their health and vigour. It was therefore deter- 


mined that they should be sent to colonies where a Puritan could © 


hope to inspire little sympathy, and where a labourer born in the 


~o 


* See Tutchin’s account of his own case in the Bloody Assizes. 


* 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 421 


temperate zone could hope to enjoy little health. Such was the state 


of the slave market that these bondmen, long as was the passage, and 


sickly as they were likely to prove, were still very valuable. It was 
estimated by Jeffreys that, on an average, each of them, after all 
charges were paid, would be worth from ten to fifteen pounds. 


There was* therefore much angry competition for grants. Some 


Tories in the West conceived that they had, by their exertions and 
sufferings during the insurrection, earned a right to share in the 
profits which had been eagerly snatched up by the sycophants of 
Whitehall. The courtiers, however, were victorious.* 

The misery of the exiles fully equalled that of the negroes who are 
now carried from Congo to Brazil. It appears from the best infor- 
mation which is at present accessiblethat more than one fifth of those 
who were shipped were flung to the sharks before the end of the voy- 
age. The human cargoes were stowed close in the holds of small 
vessels. So little space was allowed that the wretches, many of whom 
were still tormented by unhealed wounds, could not lie down at once 
without lying on one another. ‘They were never suffered to go on 
deck. The hatchway was constantly watched by sentinels armed 
with hangers and blunderbusses. In the dungeon below all was 
darkness, stench, lamentation, disease and death. Of ninety-nine 
convicts who were carried out in one vessel, twenty-two died before 
they reached Jamaica, although the voyage was performed with un- 
usual speed. ‘The survivors when they arrived at their house of 
bondage were mere skeletons. During some weeks coarse biscuit 
and fetid water had been doled cut to them in such scanty measure 
that any one of them could easily have consumed the ration which 
was assigned to five. They were, therefore, in such a state that the 
merchants to whom they had been consigned found it expedient to 
fatten them before selling them.+ 

Meanwhile the property both of the rebels who had suffered death, 
and of those more unfortunate men who were withering under the 
tropical sun, was fought for and torn in pieces by a crowd of greedy 
informers. By Jaw a subject attainted of treason forfeits all his sub- 
stance; and this law was enforced after the Bloody Assizes with a 
rigour at once cruel and ludicrous. The brokenhearted widows and 
destitute orphans of the labouring men whose corpses hung at the 
cross roads were called upon by the agents of the Treasury to explain 
what had become of a basket, of a goose, of a flitch of bacon, of a 
keg of cider, of a sack of beans, of a truss of hay.{ While the hum- 


—? 


* Sunderland to Jeffreys, Sept. 14, 1685, Jeffreys to the King, Sept. 19, 1685, in 
the State Paper Office. 

+ The best account of the sufferings of those rehels who were sentenced to 
transportation is to be found in a very curious narrative written by John Coad, 
an honest, Godfearing carpenter who joined Monmouth, was badly wounded at 
Philip’s Norton, was tried by Jeffreys, and was sent to Jamaica. The original 
Manuscript was kindly lent to me by Mr. Phippard, to whom it belongs. , 

} Inthe Treasury records of the autumn of 1685 are several letters directing 
search to be made for trifles of this sort. 


\ 


‘eae 
7 


422 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


bler retainers of the government were pillaging the families of the 
slaughtered peasants, the Chief Justice was fast accumulating a for- 
tune out of the plunder of a higher class of Whigs. He traded large- 
ly in pardons. His most lucrative transaction of this kind was with 
a gentleman named Edmund Prideaux. It is certain that Prideanx 
had not been in arms against the government, and it is probable that 
his only crime was the wealth which he had inherited from his father, 
an eminent lawyer who had been high iu office under the Protector. 
No exertions were spared to make out a case for the crown. Mercy 
was offered to some prisoners on condition that they would bear eyi- 
dence against Prideaux. The unfortunate man lay long in gaol, and 
at length overcome with fear of the gallows, consented to pay fifteen 
thousand pounds for his liberation. This great sum was received by 
Jeffreys. He bought with it an estate, to which the people gave the 
name of Aceldama, from that accursed field which was purchased 
with the price of innocent blood.* 

He was ably assisted in the work of extortion by the crew of para- 
sites who were in the habit of drinking and laughing with him. The 
office of these men was to drive Jhard bargains with convicts under 
the strong terrors of death, and with parents trembling for the lives 
of children. A portion of the spoil was abandoned by Jeffreys to his 
agents. To one of his boon companions, it is said, he tossed a par- 
don for a rich traitor across the table during a revel. It was not safe 
to have recourse to any intercession except that of his creatures; for 
he guarded his profitable monopoly of mercy with jealous care. It 
wes even suspected that he sent some persons to the gibbet solely 
because they had applied for the royal clemency through channels 
independent of him.+ 

Some courtiers nevertheless contrived to obtain a small share of 
this traffic. The ladies of the Quecn’s household distinguished them- 
selves preéminently by rapacity and hardheartedness. Part of the 
disgrace which they incurred falls on their mistress: for it was solely 
on account of the relation in which they stood to her that they were 
able to enrich themselves by so odious a trade; and there can be no 
question that she might with a word or a look have restrained them. 
But in truth she encouraged them by her evil example, if not by her 
express approbation. She seems to have been one of that large class 
of persons who bear adversity better than prosperity. While her 
husband was a subject and an exile, shut out from public employ- 
ment, and in imminent danger of being deprived of his birthright, 
the suavity and humility of her manners conciliated the kindness 
even of those who most abhorred her religion. But when her good 
fortune came her good nature disappeared. The meek and affable 


* Commons’ Journals, Oct. 9, Nov. 10, Dec. 26, 1690; Oldmixon, 706. Panegyric 
on Jeffreys. 
+ Life and Death of Lord Jeffreys; Panegyric on Jeffreys; Kiffin’s Memoirs. 


© if 
—- . 
ams 


a 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 423 


Duchess turned out an ungracious and haughty Queen.* The mis- 
fortunes which she subsequently endured have made her an object of 
some interest; but that interest would be not a little heightened if it 
could be shown that in the season of her greatness, she saved, or even 
tried to save, one single victim from the most. frightful proscription 
that England hasever seen. Unhappily the only request that she is 
known to have preferred touching the rebels was that a hundred of 
those who were sentenced to transportation might be given to her.+ 
The profit which she cleared on the cargo, after making large allow- 
ance for those who died of hunger and fever during the passage, can- 
not be estimated at less than a thousand guineas. We cannot won- 
der thaf her attendants should have imitated her unprincely greedi- 
ness and her unwomanly cruelty. They exacted a thousand pounds 
from Roger Hoare, a merchant of Bridgewater, who had contributed 
to the military chest of the rebel army. But the prey on which they 
pounced most eagerly was one which it might have been thought that 
even the most ungentle natures would have spared. Already some of 
the girls who had presented the standard to Monmouth at Taunton 
had cruelly expiated their offence. One of them had been thrown 
into prison where an infectious malady was raging. She had sick- 
ened and died there. Another had presented herself at the bar be- 
fore Jeffreys to beg for mercy. ‘‘ Take her, gaoler,” vociferated the 
Judge, with one of those frowns which had often struck terror into 
stouter hearts than hers. She burst into tears, drew her hood over 
her face, followed the gaoler out of the court, fell ill of fright, and in 
afew hours was a corpse. Most of the young ladies, however, who 
had walked in the procession were still alive. Some of them were 
under ten years of age. AIl had acted under the orders of their 
schoolmistress, without knowing that they were committing a crime. 
The Queen’s maids of honour asked the royal permission to wring 
money out of the parents of the poor children; and the permission 
Was granted. An order was sent down to Taunton that all these 
little girls should be seized and imprisoned. Sir Francis Warre of 
Hestercombe, the Tory member for Bridgewater, was requested to 
undertake the office of exacting the ransom. He was charged to de- 
clare in strong language that the maids of honour would not endure 
delay, that they were determined to prosecute outlawry, unless a rea- 
sonable sum were forthcoming, and that by a reasonable sum was 
meant seven thousand pounds. Warre excused himself from taking 
any part in a transaction so scandalous. The maids of honour then 
requested William Penn to act for them; and Penn accepted the 


* Burnet, i. 368; Evelyn’s Diary, Feb. 4, 1684-5, July 13, 1686. In one of the 
sutires of that time are these lines: 


‘* When Duchess, she was gentle, mild, and civil; 
When Queen, she proved a raging furious devil.” 


+ Sunderland to Jeffreys, Sept. 14, 1685. 


424 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


commission. Yet it should seem that a little of the pertinacious scru- 
pulosity which he had often shown about taking off his hat would 
not have been altogether out of place on this occasion. He probabiy 
silenced the remonstrances of his conscience by repeating to himself 
that none of the money which was extorted would go into his own 
pocket; that if he refused to be the agent of the ladies they would find 
agents less humane; that by complying he should increase his influence 


at the court, and that his influence at the court had already enabled 


him, and still might enable him, to render great services to his op- 
pressed brethren. The maids of honour were at last forced to con- 


tent themselves with less than a third part of what they had de- 


manded.* 


* Locke’s Western Rebellion; Toulmin’s History of Taunton, edited by Savage; 


Letter of the Duke of Somerset to Sir F. Warre; Letter of Sunderland to Penn, 
Feb. 18, 1685-6, from the State Paper Office, in the Mackintosh Collection. (1848.) 
The letter of Sunderland is as follows:— ; 

‘* Whitehall, Feb. 18, 1685-6, 


‘‘Mr. Penne, 

‘*Her Majesty’s Maids of Honour having acquainted me that they design 
to employ you and Mr. Walden in making a composition with the Relations of 
the Maids of Taunton for the high Misdemeanour they have been guilty of, I do 
at their request hereby let you know that His Majesty has been pleased to give 
their Fines to the said Maids of Honour, and therefore recommend it to Mr. 
Walden and you to make the most advantageous composition yon can in their 
behalf, 

**T am, Sir, 
‘* Your humble servant, 
‘* SUNDERLAND.” 

That the person to whom this letter was addressed was William Penn the 
Quaker was not doubted by Sir James Mackintosh who first brought it to light, 
or, as far as Iam aware, by any other person, till after the publication of the 
first part of this History. It has since been confidently asserted that the letter 
was addressed to a certain George Penne, who appears from an old account- 
book lately discovered to have been concerned in a negotiation for the ransom 
of one of Monmouth’s followers, named Azariah Pinney. 

If I thought that I had committed an error, I should, I hope, have the honesty 
to acknowledge it. But, after full consideration, I am satisfied that Sunder- 
land’s letter was addressed to William Penn. 

Much has been said about the way in which the name is spelt. The Quaker, 
we are told, was not Mr. Penne, but Mr. Penn. I feel assured that no person 
conversant with the books and manuscripts of the seventeenth century will at- 
tach any importance to this argument. It is notorious that a proper name was 
then thought to be well spelt if the sound were preserved. To go no further 
than the persons who, in Penn’s time held the Great Seal, one of them is some- 
times Hyde and sometimes Hide: another is Jefferies, Jeffries, Jeffereys, and 
Jeffreys; a third is Somers, Sommers, and Summers: a fourth is Wright and 
Wrighte; and a:fifth is Cowper and Cooper. The Quaker’s name was spelt in 
three ways. He, and his father the Admiral before him, invariably, as far as I 
have observed, spelt it Penn; but most people spelt it Pen; and there were some 
who adhered to the ancient form, Penne. For example, William the father is 


Penne in a letter from Disbrowe to Thurloe, dated on the 7th of December, 1654; © 


and William the son is Penne in a newsletter of the 22nd of September, 1688, 
printed in the Ellis Correspondence. In Richard Ward’s Life and Letters of 
Henry More, printed in 1710, the name of the Quaker will be found spelt in all 
the three ways, Penn in the index, Pen in page 197, and Penne in page 311. The 
name is Penne in the Commission which the Admiral carried out with him on 


ia HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 425 

No English sovereign has ever given stronger proof of a cruel na- 
ture than James the Second. Yet his cruelty was not more odious 
‘than his mercy. Or perhaps it may be more correct to say that his 


his expedition to the West Indies. Burchett, who became Secretary to the Ad- 
miralty soon after the Revolution, and remained in office long after the acces- 
sion of the House of Hanover, always in his Nav_] History, wrote the name of 
Penne. Surely it cannot be thought strange that an old-fashioned spelling, in 
which the Secretary of the Admiralty persisted so late as 1720, should have been 
used at the office of the Secretary of State in 1686. I am quite confident that, if 
the letter which we are considering had been of a different kind, if Mr. Penne 
had been informed that, in consequence of his earnest intercession, the King 
had been graciously pleased to grant a free pardon to the Taunton girls, andif 
Thad attempted to deprive the Quaker of the credit of that intercession on the 
Bound that his name was not Penne, the very persons who now complain.so 

itterly that Iam unjust to his memory would have complained quite as bitterly, 
and, I must say, with much more reason. 

I think myself, therefore, perfectly justified in considering the names, Penn 
and Penne, as the same. To which, then, of the two persons who bore that 
name, George or William, is it probable that the letter of the Secretary of State 
was addressed. 

George was evidently an adventurer of avery lowclass. All that we learn 
about him from the papers of the Pinney family is that he was employed in the 
purchase of a pardon for the younger son of a dissenting minister. The whole 
sum which appears to have passed through George’s hands on the occasion was 
Sixty-five pounds. His commission on the transaction must therefore have been 
small. The only other information which we have about him, is that he, some 
time later, applied to the government for a favour which was very far from being 
anhonour. In England the Groom Porter of the Palace had a jurisdiction over 

ames of chance, and made some very dirty gain by issuing lottery tickets and 

icensing hazard tables. George appears to have petitioned for a similar priv- 
ilege in the American colonies. 

William Penn was, during the reign of James the Second, the most active and 
eet solicitor about the Court. I will quote the words of his admirer 

rose. ‘‘Quum autem Pennus tanta gratia plurimum apud regem valeret, et 
per id perplures sibi amicos acquireret, illum omnes, etiam qui modo aliqua no- 
litia erant conjuncti, quoties aliquid a rege postulandum agendumve apud regem 
esset, adire, ambire, orare, ut eos apud regem adjuvaret.’’ He was overwhelmed 
by business of this kind, ‘‘ obrutus negotiationibus curationibusque.’’ His house 

and the approaches to it were every day blocked up by crowds of persons who 
came to request his good offices; ‘‘domus ac vestibula quotidie referta clientium 
et supplicantium.’’ From the Fountainhall papers it appears that his influence 
was felt even in the highlands of Scotland. We learn from himself that, at this 
time, he was always toiling for others, that he was a daily suitor at Whitehall, 

‘and that, if he had chosen to sell his infiuence, he could, in little more than 
three years, have put twenty thousand pounds into his pocket, and obtained a 
hundred thousand more for the improvement of the colony of which he was 
proprietor. 

Such was the position of these two men. Which of them, then, was the more 
likely to be employed in the matter to which Sunderland’s letter related? Was 
it George or William, an agent of the lowest or of the highest class? The per- 
sons interested were ladies of rank and fashion, resident at the palace, where 
George would hardly have been admitted into an outer room, but where William 
was every day in the presence chamber and was frequently called into the closet. 
The greatest nobles in the kingdom were zealous and active in the cause of their 
fair Friends, nobles with whom William lived ia habits of familiar intercourse, 

-but who would hardly have thought George fit company for their grooms. The 
sum in question was seven thousand pounds, a sum not large when compared 
With the masses of wealth with which William had constantly to deal, but more 
than a hundred times as large as the only ransom which is known to have 


si 


" 


426 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


mercy and his cruelty were such that each reflects infamy on the 
other. Our horror at the fate of the simple clowns, the young lads, 
the delicate women, to whom he was inexorably severe, is increased 


——2 


passed through the hands of George. These considerations would suffice to raise 
a strong presumption that Sunderland’s letter was addressed to William, and 
not to George: but there is a still stronger argument behind. 

It is most important to observe that the person to whom this letter was ad- — 
dressed was not the first person whom the Maids of Honour had requested to act 
forthem. They applied to him because another person to whom they had pre- 
viously applied, had, after some correspondence, declined the office. From 
their first application we learn with certainty what sort of person they wished 
toemploy. If their first application had been made to some obscure pettifogger 
or needy gambler, we would be warranted in believing that the Penne to whom 
their second application was made was George. If, on the other hand, their 
first application was made to a gentleman of the highest consideration, we can 
hardly be wrong in saying that the Penne to whom their second application was 
made must have been William. To whom, then, was their first application 
made? It was to Sir Francis Warre of Hestercombe, a Baronet and a Member 
of Parliament. The letters are still extant in which the Duke of Somerset, the 
-~oud Duke, not a man very likely to have corresponded with George Penne, 

vessed Sir Francis to undertake the commission. The latest of those letters is 
vated about three weeks before Sunderland’s letter to Mr. Penne. Somerset 
vells Sir Francis that the town clerk of Bridgewater, whose name, I may remark 
in passing, is spelt sometimes Bird and sometimes Birde, had ofiered his ser- 
vices, but that those services had been declined. It is clear, therefore, that the 
Maids of Honour were desirous to have an agent of high station and character. 
And they were right. For the sum which they demanded was so large that no 
ordinary jobber could safely be entrusted with the care of their interests. , 

As Sir Francis Warre excused himself from undertaking the negotiation, it 
became necessary for the Maids of Honour and their advisers to choose some- 
body who might supply his place; and they chose Penne. Which of the two 
Pennes, then, must have been their choice, George, a petty broker to whom a 
percentage on sixty-five pounds was an object, and whose highest ambition was 
to derive an infamous livelihood from cards and dice, or William, not inferior in 
social position to any commoner in the kingdom? Is it possible to believe that 
the ladies, who, in January, ap athe the Duke of Somerset to procure for 
them an agent in the first rank of the English gentry, and who did not think an 
attorney, though occupying a respectable post in a respectable corporation, 
good enough for their purpose, would, in February, have resolved to trust 

everything to a fellow who was as much below Bird as Bird was below Warre? 

But, it is said, Sunderland’s letter is dry and distant; and he never would 
have written in such astyle to William Penn with whom he was on friendly 
terms, Can it be necessary for me to reply that the official communications 
which a Minister of State makes to his dearest friends and nearest relations are 
as cold and formal as those which he makes to strangers? Will it be contended 
that the General Wellesley, to whom the Marquis Wellesley, when Governor of 
India, addressed so many letters beginning with “‘Sir,’’ and ending with ‘* Ihave 
the honour to be your obedient servant,’’ cannot possibly have been his Lord- 
ship’s brother Arthur? 

But, it is said, Oldmixon tells a different story. According to him, a Popish 
lawyer named Brent, and a subordinate jobber, named Crane, were the agents 
in the matter of the Taunton girls. Now it is notorious that of all our historians — 
Oldmixon is the least trustworthy. His most positive assertion would be of no 
value when opposed to such evidence as is furnished by Sunderland's letter. 
But Oldmixon asserts nothing positively. Not only does he not assert positively 
that Brent and Crane acted for the Maids of Honour; but he does not even as- 
sert positively that the Maids of Honour were at all concerned. He goes no- 
further than ‘‘It was said,’ and ‘It was reported.” It is plain, therefore, that 
he was very imperfectly informed. Ido not think it impossible, however, that 


- 


mut “s 
. - 
e.. 
ae 
~~ 
j 


when we find to whom and for what considerations he granted his 
pardon. 

The rule by which a prince ought, after a rebellion, to be guided 
in selecting rebels for punishment is perfectly obvious. The ring- 
leaders, the men of rank, fortune, and education, whose power and 
whose artifices have led the multitude in error, are the proper objects 
of severity. The deluded populace, when once the slaughter on the 
field of battle is over, can scarcely be treated too leniently. This 
rule, so evidently agreeable to justice and humanity, was not only 
not observed: it was inverted. While those who ought to have been 

spared were slaughtered by hundreds, the few who might with pro- 
pricty have been left to the utmost rigour of the law were spared. 
This eccentric clemency has perplexed some writers, and has drawn 
forth ludicrous eulogies from others. It was neither at all mysteri- 
ous, nor at all praiseworthy. It may be distinctly traced in every 
case either to a sordid or to a malignant motive, either to thirst for 
money or to thirst for blood. 

In the case of Grey there was no mitigating circumstance. His 
parts and knowledge, the rank which he had inherited in the state, 

_ and the high command which he had borne in the rebel army, would 
have pointed him out to a just government as a much fitter object of 
punishment than Alice Lisle, than William Hewling, than any of the 
hundreds of ignorant peasants whose skulls and quarters were ex- 
posed in Somersetshire. But Grey’s estate was large and was strictly 
entailed. He had only a life interest in his property; and he could 
forfeit no more interest than he had. If he died, his lands at once 
devolved on the next heir. If he were pardoned, he would be able 
to pay alargeransom. He was therefore suffered to redeem himself 
by giving a bond for forty thousand pounds to the Lord Treasurer, 
and smaller sums to other courtiers.* 

_ §ir John Cochrane had held among the Scotch rebels the same rank 
which had been held by Grey in the West of England. That Coch- 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 427 


there may have been some foundation for the rumour which he mentions. We 
have seen that one busy lawyer, named Bird, volunteered to look after the inter- 
est of the Maids of Honour, and that they were forced to tell him that they did 
not want hisservices. Other persons, and among them the two whom Oldmixon 
names, may have tried to thrust themselves into so lucrative a job, and may, by 
aeeeaing to interest at Court, have succeeded in obtaining a little money from 

rrified families. But nothing can be more clear than that the authorised 
agent of the Maids of Honour was the Mr. Penne, to whom the Secretary of 
a wrote; and I firmly believe that Mr. Penne to have been William the 

uaker, 

lf it be said that it is incredible that so good a man would have been concerned 
in so bad an affair, I can only answer that this affair was very far indeed from 
being the worst in which he was concerned. 

For these reasons I leave the text, and shall leave it exactly as it originally 
stood. (1857.) 

* Burnet, i. 646, and Speaker Onslow’s note; Clarendon to Rochester, May 8, 


- 


ow 


428 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


rane should be forgiven by a prince vindictive beyond all example, 
.seemed incredible. But Cochrane was the younger son of a rich 
“family; it was therefore only by sparing him that money could be 
made out of him. His father, Lord Dundonald, offered a bribe of 
five thousand pounds to the priests of the royal household; and a 
pardon was granted.* 

Samuel Storey, a noted sower of sedition, who had been Commis- 
sary to the rebel army, and who had inflamed the ignorant populace 
of Somersetshire by vehement harangues in which James had been 
described as an incendiary and a poisoner, was admitted 4o mercy. 
For Storey was able to give important assistance to J effreys 1 in wring- 

ing fifteen thousand pounds out of Prideaux.+ : 
' ‘None of the traitors had less right to expect favour than Wade, 
Goodenough, and Ferguson. These three chiefs of the rebellion had 
fled together from the field of Sedgemoor, and had reached the coast 
in safety. But they had found a frigate cruising near the spot where 
they had hoped to embark. They had then separated. Wade and 
Goodenough were soon discovered and brought up to London, 
Deeply as they had been implicated in the Rye House plot, con- 
spicuous as they had been among the chiefs of the Western insurrec- 
tion, they were suffered to live, because they had it in their power to 
give information which enabled the King to slaughter and plunder 
some persons whom he hated, but to whom he had never yet been 
able to bring home any crime. f 

How Ferguson escaped was, and still is, a mystery. Of all the 
enemies of the government he was, without doubt, the most deeply 
criminal. He was the original author of the plot for assassinating 
the royal brothers. He had written that Declaration which, for in- 
solence, malignity, and mendacity, stands unrivalled even among the 
libels of those stormy times. He had instigated Monmouth first to 
invade the kingdom, and then 1o usurp the crown. It was reasonable 
to expect that a strict search would be made for the archtraitor, as he 
was often called; and such a search a man of so singular an aspect 
and dialect could scarcely have eluded. It was confidently reported 
in the coffee houses of London that Ferguson was taken; and this 
report found credit with men who had “excellent opportunities of 
knowing the truth. The next thing that was heard of him was that 
he was safe on the Continent. It was strongly suspected that he had 
been in constant communication with the government against which 
he was constantly plotting, that he had, while urging his associates to 
every excess of rashness, sent to Whitehall just so much information 


* Burnet, i. 634. 

+ Calamy’ s Memoirs; Commons’ Journals, December 26, 1690; Sunderland to 
Jeffreys, September 14, 1685; Privy Council Book, Februar ry 26, 1685-6. 

¢ Lansdowne MS. 1152; Harl. MS. 6845; London Gazette, uly 20, 1685, 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 429 


about their proceedings as might suffice to save his own neck, and 
that therefore orders had been given to let him escape.* 

And now Jeffreys had done his work, and returned to claim his 
reward. He arrived at Windsor from the West, leaving carnage, 
mourning, and terror behind him. The hatred with which he was 
regarded by the people of Somersetshire has no parallel in our his- 
tory. It was not to be quenched by time or by political changes, was 
long transmitted from generation to generation, and raged fiercely 
against his innocent progeny. When he had been many years dead, 
when higsname and title were extinct, his granddaughter, the Coun- 
tess of Pomfret, travelling along the western road, was insulted by 
the populace, and found that she could not safely venture herself 
among vm descendants of those who had witnessed the Bloody 
Assizes. 

But at the Court Jeffreys was cordially welcomed. He was a judge 
after his master’s own heart. James had watched the circuit with 
interest and delight. In his drawing-room and at his table he had 
frequently talked of the havoc which was making among his dis- 
affected subjects witha glee at which the forcign ministers stood 
aghast. With his own hand he had penned accounts of what- he face- 
tiously called his Lord Chief Justice’s campaign in the West. Some 
hundreds of rebels, His Majesty wrote to the Haguc, had been con- 
demned. Some of them had been hanged: more should be hanged: 
and the rest should be sent tothe plantations. It was to no purpose 
that Ken wrote to implore mercy for the misguided people, and de- 
scribed with pathetic eloquence the frightful state of his diocese. He 
complained that it was impossible to walk along the highways with- 
out seeing some terrible spectacle, and that the whole air of Somer- 
setshire was tainted with death. The King read, and remained, ac- 
cording to the saying of Churchill, hard as the marble chimneypieces 
of Whitenall. At Windsor the great seal of England was put 
into the hands of Jeffreys, and in the next London Gazette it was 


* Many writers have asserted, without the slightest foundation, that a pardon 
was granted to Ferguson by James. Some have been so absurd. as to cite this 
imaginary pardon, which, if it were real, would prove only that Ferguson was 
a court spy, in proof of the magnanimity and benignity of the prince who be- 
headed Alice Lisle and burned Elizabeth Gaunt. Ferguson was not only not 
Specially pardoned, but was excluded by name from the general pardon pub- 
lished in the following spring. (London Gazette, March 15, 1685-6.) If, as the 
public suspected, and as seems probable, indulgence was shown to him, it was 
indulgence of which James was, not without reason, ashamed, and which was, 
as far as possible, kept secret. The reports which were current in London at 
the time are mentioned in the Observator, Aug. 1, 1685. — 

Sir John Reresby, who ought to have been well informed, positively affirms 
that Ferguson was taken three days after the battle of Sedgemoor. But Sir 
John was certainly wrong as to the date, and may therefore have been wrong 
as to the whole story. From the London Gazette, and from Goodenough’s con- 
fession (Lansdowne MS. 1152), it is clear that, a se a after the battle, Fer- 
guson had not been caught, and was supposed to be still lurking in England. 

+t Granger’s Biographical History. 


430 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. — . 


solemnly notified that this honour was the reward of the many 
eminent and faithful services which he had rendered to the crown.* 

At a later period, when all men of all parties spoke with horror of 
the Bloody Assizes, the wicked Judge and the wicked King attempt- 
ed to vindicate themselves by throwing the blame on each other. 
Jeffreys, in the Tower, protested that, in his utmost cruelty, he had 
not gone beyond his master’s orders, nay, that he had fallen short of 
them. James, at Saint Germain’s, would willingly have had it be- 
lieved that his own inclinations had been on the side of clemency, 
and that unmerited obloquy had been brought on him by the violence 
of his minister. But neither of these hard-hearted men must be ab- 
solved at the expense of the other. The plea set up for James can 
be proved under his own hand to be false in fact. The plea of Jef- 
freys, even if it be true in fact, is utterly worthless. 

The slaughter in the West was over. The slaughter in London 
was about to begin. The government was peculiarly desirous to find 
victims among the great Whig merchants of the City. They had, in 
the last reign, been a formidable part of the strength of the opposi- 
tion. They were wealthy; and their wealth was not, like that of 
many noblemen and country gentlemen, protected by entail against 
forfeiture. In the case of Grey, and of men situated like him, it was 
impossible to gratify cruelty and rapacity at once; but a rich trader 
might be both hanged and plundered. The commercial grandees, 
however, though in general hostile to Popery and to arbitrary power, 
had yet been too scrupulous or too timid to incur the guilt of high 
treason. One of the most considerable among them was Henry 
Cornish. He had been an Alderman under the old charter of 
the City, and had filled the office of Sheriff when the question 
of the Exclusion Bill occupied the public mind. In politics he 
was a Whig: his religious opinions leaned towards Presbyteri- 
anism: but his temper was cautious and moderate. It is not 
proved by trustworthy evidence that he ever approached the verge 
of treason. He had, indeed, when Sheriff, been very unwilling to 
employ as his deputy a man so violent and unprincipled as Good- 
enough. When the Rye House plot was discovered, great hopes 
were entertained at Whitehall that Cornish would appear to have 
been concerned : but these hopes were disappointed. One of the 
conspirators, indeed, John Rumsey, was ready to swear anything : 
but a single witness was not sufficient; and no second witness could 
be found. More than two years had since elapsed. Cornish thought 
himself safe; but the eye of the tyrant was upon him. Goodenough, 
terrified by the near prospect of death, and still harbouring malice 
on account of the unfavourable opinion which had always been enter- 
tained of him by his old master, consented to supply the testimony 


* Burnet, i. 648; James to the Prince of Orange, Sept. 10 and 24, 1685; Lord 
Lonsdale’s Memoirs; London Gazette, Oct. 1, 1685, 


7 
“ 
om a 
» 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 43\ 


which had hitherto been wanting. Cornish was arrested while trans- 


acting business on the Exchange, was hurried to gaol, was kept there 
some days in solitary confinement, and was brought altogether un- 
prepared to the bar of the Old Bailey. The case against him rested 
wholly on the evidence of Rumsey and Goodenough. Both were,by 
their own confession, accomplices in the plot with which they charged 
the prisoner. Both were impelled by the strongest pressure of hope 
and fear to criminate him. Evidence was produced which proved 
that Goodenough was also under the influence of personal enmity. 


_Rumsey’s story was inconsistent with the story which he had told 


| 


when he appeared as a witness against Lord Russell. But these 
things were urged in vain. On the bench sate three judges who had 
been with Jeffreys in the West; and it was remarked by those who 
watched their deportment that they had come back from the carnage 
of Taunton in a fierce and excited state. It is indeed but too true 
that the taste for blood is a taste which even men not naturally cruel 
may, by habit, speedily acquire. The bar and the bench united to 
browbeat the unfortunate Whig. The jury, named by a courtly 
Sheriff, readily found a verdict of Guilty; and, in spite of the indig- 
nant murmurs of the public, Cornish suifered death within ten days 
after he had been arrested. That no circumstance of degradation 
might be wanting, the gibbet was set up where King Street meets 
Cheapside, in sight of the house where he had long lived in general 
respect, of the Exchange where his credit had always stood high, and 
of the Guildhall where he had distinguished himself as a popular 


leader. He died with courage and with many pious expressions, but 


showed, by look and gesture, such strong resentment at the barbar- 
ity and injustice with which he had been treated, that his enemies 
spread a calumnious report concerning him. He was drunk, they 
said, or out of his mind, when he was turned off. William Penn, 
however, who stood near the gallows, and whose prejudices were all 
on the side of the government, afterwards said that he could see in 
Cornish’s deportment nothing but the natural indignation of an inno- 
cent man slain under the forms of law. The head of the murdered 
magistrate was placed over the Guildhall.* 

Black as this case was, it was not the blackest which disgraced the 
sessions of that autumn at the Old Bailey. Among the persons con- 
cerned in the Rye House plot was a man named James Burton. By 
his own confession he had been present when the design of assassin- 
ation was discussed by his accomplices. When the conspiracy was 
detected, a reward was offered for hisapprehension. He was saved 
from death by an ancient matron of the Baptist persuasion, named 
Elizabeth Gaunt. This woman, with the peculiar manners and 
phraseology which then distinguished her sect, had a large charity. 


* Trial of Cornishinthe Collection of State Trials; Sir J. Hawles’s Remarks 
on Mr. Cornish’s Trial; Burnet, i. 651; Bloody Assizes; Stat. 1 Gul. and Mar. 


482 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. - ; 


Her life was passed in relieving the unhappy of all religious denomi- 
nations, and she was well known as a constant visitor of the gaols. 
Her political and theological opinions, as well as her compassionate 
disposition, led her to do everything in her power for Burton. She 
procured a boat which took him to Gravesend, where he got on 
board of a ship bound for Amsterdam. At the moment of parting 
she put into his hand a sum of money which, for her means, was 
very large. Burton, after living some time in exile, returned to 
England with Monmouth, fought at Sedgemoor, fled to London, and 
took refuge in the house of John Fernley, a barber in Whitechapel. 
Fernley was very poor. He was besieged by creditors. He knew 
that a reward of a hundred pounds had been offered by the govern- 
ment for the apprehension of Burton. But the honest man Was in- 
capable of betraying one who, in extreme peril, had come under the 
shadow of his roof. Unhappily it was soon noised abroad that the 
anger of James was more strongly excited against those who har- 
boured rebels than against the rebels themselves. He had publicly 
declared that of all forms of treason the hiding of traitors from 
his vengeance was the most unpardonable. Burton knew this. He 
delivered himself up to the government; and he gave information: 
against Fernley and Elizabeth Gaunt. They were brought to 
trial. The villain whose life they had preserved had the heart 
and the forehead to appear as the principal witness against 
them. They were convicted. Fernley was sentenced to the gallows, 
Elizabeth Gaunt to the stake. Even after all the horrors of that 
year, many thought it impossible that these judgments should be 
carried into execution. But the King was without pity. Fernley 
was hanged. Elizabeth Gaunt was burned alive at Tyburn on the 
same day on which Cornish suffered death in Cheapside. She left a 
paper written, indeed, in no graceful style, yet such as was read by 
many thousands with compassion and horror. ‘‘My fault,” she 
said, ‘‘ was one which a prince might well have forgiven. I did but 
relieve a poor family; andlo! I must die for it.” She complained 
of the insolence of the judges, of the ferocity of the gaoler, and of 
the tyranny of him, the great one of all, to whose pleasure she and 
so many other victims had been sacrificed. In so far as they had 
injured herself, she forgave them: but, in that they were implacable 
enemies of that good cause which would yet revive and flourish, she 
left them to the judgment of the King of Kings. To the last she 
preserved a tranquil courage, which reminded the spectators of the 
most heroic deaths of which they had read in Fox. William Penn, 
for whom exhibitions which humane men generally avoid seem to 
have had a strong attraction, hastened from Cheapside, where he had 
seen Cornish hanged, to Tyburn, in order to see Elizabeth Gaunt ~ 
burned. He afterwards related that, when she calmly disposed the 
straw about her in such a manner as to shorten her sufferings, all the 
bystanders burst into tears. It was much noticed that, while the 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 433 


foulest judicial murder which had disgraced even those times was 
perpetrating, a tempest burst forth, such as had not been known 
since that great hurricane which had 1aged round the deathbed of 
Oliver. The oppressed Puritans reckoned up, not without a gloomy 
satisfaction, the houses which had been blown down, and the ships 
which had been cast away, and derived some consolation from think: 
ing that heaven was bearing awful testimony against the iniquity 
which afflicted the earth. Since that terrible day no woman has 
suffered death in England for any political offence.* 

It was not thought that Goodenough had yet earned his pardon. 
~The government was bent on destroying a victim of no high rank, a 
surgeon in the city, named Bateman. He had attended Shaftesbury 
professionally, and had been a zealous Exciusionist. He may pos- 
sibly have been privy to the Whig plot; but it is certain that he had 
not been one of the leading conspirators; for, in the great mass of 
depositions published by the government, his name occurs only 
once, and then not in connection with any crime bordering on high 
treason. From his indictment, and from the scanty account which 
remains of his trial, it seems clear that he was not accused of parti- 
cipating in the design of murdering the royal brothers. |The malig- 
nity with which so obscure a man, guilty of so slight an offence, was 
hunted down, while traitors far more criminal and far more eminent 
were allowed to ransom themselves by giving evidence against him, 
seemed to require explanation; and a disgraceful explanation was 
found. When Oates, after his scourging, was carried into Newgate 
insensible, and, as all thought, in the last agony, he had béen bled 
and his wounds had been dressed by Bateman. This was an offence 
not to be forgiven. Bateman was arrested and indicted. The wit- 
-hesses against him were men of infamous character, men, too, who were 
swearing for their own lives. None of them had yet got his pardon; 
and it was a popular saying, that they-fished for prey, like tame cor- 
morants, with ropes round their necks. The prisoner, stupefied by 
illness, was unable to articulate, or to understand what passed. His 
son and daughter stood by him at the bar. They read as well as 
they could some notes which he had set down, and examined his 
Witnesses. It was to little purpose. He was convicted, hanged, and 
quartered. + 

Never, not even under the tyranny of Laud, had the condition of 
the Puritans been so deplorable as at that time. Never had spies 
been so actively employed in detecting congregations. Never had 
magistrates, grand jurors, rectors and churchwardens been so muca 


* Trials of Fernley and Elizabeth Gaunt, in the Collection of State Trials; 
Burnet, i. 649; Bloody Assizes; Sir J. Bramston’s Memoirs; Lutirell’s Diary, 
Oct.. 23, 1685. 

+ Bateman’s Trial in the Collection of State Trials; Sir John Hawles’s Re- 
marks. Itis worth while to compare Thomas Lee’s evidence on this occasion 
with his confession previously published by authority. 


is 


Ss 


434 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


on the alert. Many Dissenters were cited before the ecclesiastical — 
courts. Others found it necessary to purchase the connivance of the 
agents of the government by presents of hogsheads of wine, and ot 
gloves stuffed with guineas. It was impossible for the separatists to 
pray together without precautions, such as are employed by coiners 
and receivers of stolen goods. The places of meeting were fre- 
quently changed. Worship was performed sometimes just before 
break of day and sometimes at dead of night. Round the building 
where the little flock was gathered sentinels were posted to give the 
alarm if a stranger drew near. The minister in disguise was intro- 
duced through the garden and the back yard. In some houses there 
were trap doors through which, in case of danger, he might de- 
scend. Where Nonconformists lived next door to each other, the 
walls were often broken open, and secret passages were made from 
dwelling to dwelling. No psalm was sung; and many contrivances 
were used to prevent the voice of the preacher, in his moments of 
fervour, from being heard beyond the walls. Yet, with all this 
care, it was often found impossible to elude the vigilance of in. 
formers. In the suburbs of London, especially, the law was ecu 
forced with the utmost rigour. Several opulent gentlemen were 
accused of holding conventicles. Their houses were strictly searched, 
and distresses were levied to the amount of many thousands of 
pounds. The fiercer and bolder sectaries, thus driven from the 
shelter of roofs, met in the open air, and determined to repel force 
by force. A Middlesex justice who had learned that a nightly 
prayer meeting was held in a gravel pit about two miles from Lon- 
don, took with him a strong body of constables, broke in wpon the 
assembly, and seized the preacher. But the congregation, which 
consisted of about two hundred men, soon rescued their pastor, and 
put the magistrate and his officers to flight.* This, however, was 
no ordinary occurrence. In general the Puritan spirit seemed to be 
more effectually cowed at this conjuncture than at any moment be- 
fore or since. The Tory pamphleteers boasted that not one fanatic 
dared to move tongue or pen in defence of his religious opinions. 
Dissenting ministers, however blameless in life, however eminent for » 
learning and abilities, could not venture to walk the streets for fear 
of outrages, which were not only not repressed, but encouraged, by 
those whose duty it was to preserve the peace. Some divines of 
great fame were in prison. Among these was Richard Baxter. 
Others, who had, during a quarter of a century, borne up against 
oppression, now lost heart, and quitted the kingdom. Among these 
was John Howe. Great numbers of persons who had been accus- 
tomed to frequent conventicles repaired to the parish churches. It 
was remarked that the schismatics who had been terrified into this 
show of conformity might easily be distinguished by the difficulty 


————— 


* Van Citters, Oct. 1685, 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 435 


which they had in finding out the collect, and by the awkward man. 
ner in which they bowed at the name of Jesus.* 

Through many years the autumn of 1685 was remembered by the 
Nonconformists as a time of misery and terror. Yet in that autumn 
might be discerned the first faint indications of a great turn of 
fortune ; and before eighteen months had elapsed, the intolerant 
King and the intolerant Church were eagerly bidding against each 
other for the support of the party which both had so deeply injured. 


CHAPTER VI. 


JAMES was now at the height of power and prosperity. Both in 
England and in Scotland he had vanquished his enemies, and had 
punished them with a severity which had indeed excited their bitter- 
est hatred, but had, at the same time, effectually quelled their cour- 
age. The Whig party seemed extinct. The name of Whig was 
never used except as a term of reproach. The Parliament was de- 
voted to the King; and it was in his power to keep that Parliament 
to the end of his reign. The Church was louder than ever in profes- 
sions of attachment to him, and had, during the late insurrection, 
acted up to those professions. The Judges were his tools; and, if 
they ceased to be so, it was in his power to remove them. The cor- 
porations were filled with his creatures. His revenues far exceeded 
those of his predecessors. His pride rose high. He was not the 
same man who a few months before, in doubt whether his throne 
might not be overturned in an hour, had implored a foreign help 
with unkingly supplications, and had accepted it with tears of grati- 
tude. Visions of dominion and glory rose before him. He already 

saw himself, in imagination, the umpire of Europe, the champion of 
many states oppressed by one too powerful monarchy. So early as 
the month of June he had assured the United Provinces that, as 
soon as the affairs of England were settled, he would show the world 
how little he feared France. In conformity with these assurances, 
he, within a month after the battle of Sedgemoor, concluded with 
the States General a defensive treaty, framed in the very spirit of 
the Triple League. It was regarded, both at the Hague and at Ver- 
'sailles, as a most significant circumstance that Halifax, who was the 
constant and mortal enemy of French ascendency, and who had 


* Neal’s History of the Puritans, Calamy’s Account of the ejected Ministers, 
and the Nonconformists’ Memorial. contain abundant proofs of the severity of 
this persecution. Howe’s farewell letter to his flock will be found in the in- 
teresting life of that great man, by Mr. Rogers. Howe complains that he could 
not venture to show himself in the streets of London, and that his health had 
suffered from want of air and exercise. But the most vivid picture of the dis- 
tress of the Nonconformist is furnished by their deadly enemy, Lestrange, in 
the Observators of September and October, 1685, ree 


ust | 
‘ 


436 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


scarcely ever before been consulted on any grave affair since the begin- 
ning of the reign, took the lead on this occasion, and seemed to have 
the royal ear. “It was a circumstance not less significant that no pre- 
vious communication was made to Barillon. Both he and his mas- 
ter were taken by surprise. Lewis was much troubled, and expressed 
great, and not unreasonable, anxiety as to the designs of the prince 
who had lately been his pensioner and vassal. There were strong 
rumours that William of Orange was busied in organising a great 
confederacy, which was to include both branches of the House of 
Austria, the United Provinces, the kingdom of Sweden, and the elec. 
torate of Brandenburgh. It now seemed that this confederacy would 
have at its head the King and Parliament of England.* 

In fact, negotiations tending to such a result were actually opened. 
Spain proposed to form a close alliance with James; and he listened 
to the proposition with favour, though it was evident that such an 
alliance would be little less than a declaration of war against France. 
But he postponed his final decision till after the Parliament should 

have reassembled. The fate of Christendom depended on the tem- 
per in which he might then find the Commons. If they were dis- 
posed to acquiesce in 1 his plans of domestic government, there would 
be nothing to prevent him from interfering with rigour and author. 
ity in the great dispute which must soon be brought to an issue on 
the Continent. If they were refractory, he must relinquish all 
thought of arbitrating between contending nations, must again im- 
plore French assistance, must again submit to French dictation, 
must sink into a potentate of the third or fourth class, and must 
indemnify himself for the contempt with which he would be re. 
garded abroad by triumphs over law and public opinion at home. 

It seemed, indeed, that it would not be easy for him to demand more 
than the Commons were disposed to give. Already they had abun- 
dantly proved that they were desirous to maintain his prerogatives 
unimpaired, and that they were by no means extreme to mark his 
encroachments on the rights of the people. Indeed eleven twelfths 
of the members were either dependents of the court, or zealous Cava- 
liers from the country. There were few things which such an 
assembly could pertinaciously refuse to the Sovereign; but, happily 

or the nation, those few things were the very things on which Jamcs 
had set his heart. 

One of his objects was to obtain a repeal of the Habeas Corpus 
Act, which he hated, as it was natural that a tyrant should hate the 
most stringent curb that ever legislation imposed on tyranny. This 
feeling remained deeply fixed in his mind to the last, and appéars 
in the instructions which he drew up, in exile, for ‘the guidance 


* Avaux. Neg., Aug. 6-16, 1685; Despatch of Van Citters and his colleagues, 
enclosing the treaty ‘August 14-24; Lewis to Barillon, August 14-24, 20-30, 


Nig ti 
a = 
eats 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 437 


of his son.* But the Habeas Corpus Act, though passed during the 
ascendency of the Whigs, was not more dear to the Whigs than to 
the Tories. It is indeed not wonderful that this great law should be 


highly prized by all Englishmen without distinction of party: for it 


is a law which, not by circuitous, but by direct operation, adds to 
the security and happiness of every inhabitant of the realm. + 

James had yet another design, odious to the party which had set 
him on the throne and which had upheld him there. He wished to 
form a great standing army. He had taken advantage of the late 
insurrection to make large additions to the military force which his 
brother had left. The bodies now designated as the first six regi- 
ments of dragoon guards, and the nine regiments of infantry of the 
line, from the seventh to the fifteenth inclusive, had just been raised.{ 
The effect of these augmentations, and of the recall of the garrison of 
Tangier, was that the number of regular troops in England had, in a 
few months, been increased from six thousand to near twenty thou- 
sand. No English King had ever, in time of peace, had such a 
force at his command. Yet even with this force James was not con- 
tent. He often repeated that no confidence could be placed in the 
fidelity of the trainbands, that they sympathised with all the passions 
of the class to which they belonged, that, at Sedgemoor, there had 
been more militiamen in the rebel army than in the royal encamp- 
ment, and that, if the throne had been defended only by the array of 
the counties, Monmouth would have marched in triumph from Lyme 
to London. 

The revenue, large as it was when compared with that of former 
Kings, barely sufficed to meet this new charge. <A great part of the 
produce of the new taxes was absorbed by the naval expenditure. 
At the close of the late reign the whole cost of the army, the Tangier 
regiments included, had been under three hundred thousand pounds 
a year. Six hundred thousand pounds a year would not now suf- 
fice.§ If any further augmentation were made, it would be neces- 
sary to demand a supply from Parliament; and it was not likely 
that Parliament would be in a complying mood. The very name 
of standing army was hateful to the whole nation, and to no part 


of the nation more hateful than to the Cavalier gentlemen who filled 


the Lower House. In their minds a standing army was inseparably 


* Instructions headed, ‘‘ For my son the Prince of Wales, 1692,” among the 
Stuart Papers, 

+“ The Habeas Corpus,” said Johnson, the most bigoted of Tories, to Boswell, 
‘, is the single advantage which our government has over that of other coun- 

ries,”* 

} See the Historical Records of Regiments, published under the supervision 
of the Adjutant General. 

§ Barillon, Dec, 3-13, 1585. He had studied the subject much. ‘‘C’est_un 
détail,” he says, ‘‘ dont j’ai connoissance.”’? It appears from the Treasury War- 
rant Book that the charge of the army for the year 1687 was fixed on the first 
of January at 623,1041. 9s, 11d, 


- 


438 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


associated with the Rump, with the Protector, with the spoliation of 
the Church, with the purgation of the Universities, with the aboh- 
tion of the peerage, with the murder of the King, with the sullen 
reign of the Saints, with cant and asceticism, with fines and seques- 
trations, with the insults which Major Generals, sprung from the 
dregs of the people, had offered to the oldest and most honourable 
families of the kingdom. 'There was, moreover, scarcely a baronet 
or a squire in the Parliament who did not owe part of his impor- 
tance in his own county to his rank in the militia. If that national 
force were set aside, the gentry of England must lose much of their 
dignity and influence. It was therefore probable that the King 
would find it more difficult to obtain funds for the support of his 
army than even to obtain the repeal of the Habeas Corpus Act. 

But both the designs which have been mentioned were subordinate 
to one great design on which the King’s whole soul was bent, but 
which was abhorred by those Tory gentlemen who were ready to 
shed their blood for his rights, abhorred by that Church which had 
never, during three generations of civil discord, wavered in fidelity 
to his house, abhorred even by that army on which, in the last ex- 
tremity, he must rely. teal 

His religion was still under proscription. Many rigorous laws 
against Roman Catholics appeared on the Statute Book, and had, 
within no long time, been rigorously executed. The Test Act ex- 
cluded from civil and military office all who dissented from the 
Church of England; and, by a subsequent Act, passed when the fic- 
tions of Oates had driven the nation wild, it had been provided that 
no person should sit in either House of Parliament without solemnly 
abjuring the doctrine of transubstantiation. That the King should 
wish to obtain for the Church to which he belonged a complete tol. 
eration was natural and right; nor is there any reason to doubt that, 
by a little patience, prudence, and justice, such a toleration might 
have been obtained. 

The extreme antipathy and dread with which the English people 
regarded his religion was not to be ascribed solely or chiefly to theo- 
logical animosity. That salvation might be found in the Church of 
Rome, nay, that some members of that Church had been among the 
brightest examples of Christian virtue, was admitted by all divines 
of the Anglican communion and by the most illustrious Noncon- 
formists. It is notorious that the penal laws against Popery were 
strenuously defended by many who thought Arianism, Quakerism, 
and Judaism more dangerous, in a spiritual point of view, than 
Popery, and who yet showed no disposition to enact similar laws 
against Arians, Quakers, or Jews. 

It is easy to explain why the Roman Catholic was treated with less 
indulgence than was shown to men who renounced the doctrine of 
. the Nicene fathers, and even to men who had not been admitted by 
baptism within the Christian pale. There was among the English a 


~ 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 438 


strong conviction that the Roman Catholic, where the interests of his 
religion were concerned, thought himself free from all the ordinary 
rules of morality, nay, that he thought it meritorious to violate those 
rules if, by so doing, he could avert injury or reproach from the 
Church of which he was a member. 

Nor was this opinion destitute of a show of reason. It was impos- 
sible to deny that Roman Catholic casuists of great eminence had 
written in defence of equivocation, of mental reservation, of perjury, 
and even of assassination. Nor, it was said, had the speculations of 
this odious school of sophists been barren of results. The massacre 


‘of Saint Bartholomew, the murder of the first William of Orange, 


the murder of Henry the Third of France, the numerous conspiracies 
which had been formed against the life of Elizabeth, and, above all, 


_ the gunpowder treason, were constantly cited as instances of the 


close connection between vicious theory and vicious practice. It was 
allezed that every one of those crimes had been prompted or 
applauded by Roman Catholic divines. The letters which Everard 
Digby wrote in lemon juice from the Tower to his wife had recently 
been published, and were often quoted. He was a scholar and a 
gentleman, upright in all ordinary dealings, and strongly impressed 
with a sense of duty to God. Yet he had been deeply concerned in 
the plot for blowing up Kings, Lords, and. Commons, and had, on 
the brink of eternity, declared that it was incomprehensible to him 
how any Roman Catholic should think such a design sinful. The 
inference popularly drawn from these things was that, however fair 
the general character of a Papist might be, there was no excess of 
fraud or cruelty of which he was not capable when the safety and 
honour of his Church were at stake. 

The extraordinary success of the fables of Oates is to be chiefly 
ascribed to the prevalence of this opinion. It was to no purpose 
that the accused Roman Catholic appealed to the integrity, humanity, 
and loyalty which he had shown through the whole course of his 
life. It was to no purpose that he called crowds of respectable wit- 
nesses, of his own persuasion, to contradict monstrous romances in- 
vented by the most infamous of mankind. It was to no purpose 
that, with the halter round his neck, he invoked on himself the 
whole vengeance of the God before whom, in a few moments, he 
must appear, if he had been guilty of meditating any ill to his prince 
or to his Protestant fellow countrymen. The evidence which he 
produced in his favour proved only how little Popish oaths were 
worth. His very virtues raised a presumption of his guilt. That he 
had before him death and judgment in immediate prospect only made 
it more likely that he would deny what, without injury to the holiest 
of causes, he could not confess. Among the unhappy men who were 
convicted of the murder of Godfrey was one Protestant of no high 
character, Henry Berry. It was a remarkable and well gttested cir. 
cumstance, that Berry’s last words did more to shake the credit of 


440 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


the plot than the dying declarations of pious and honourable Roman 
Catholics who underwent the same fate. * 

It was not only by the ignorant populace, it was, not only by 
zealots in whom fanaticism had extinguished all reason and charity, 
that the Roman Catholic was regarded as a man the very tenderness 
of whose conscience might make him a false witness, an incendiary, 
or a murderer, as a man who, where his Church was concerned, 
shrank from no atrocity and could be bound by no oath. If there 
were in that age two persons inclined by their judgment and by their 
temper to toleration, those persons were Tillotson and Locke. Yet 
Tillotson, whose indulgence for various kinds of schismatics and . 
heretics brought on him the reproach of heterodoxy, told the House 
of Commons from the pulpit that it was their duty to make effectual 
provision against the propagation of a religion more mischievous than 
irreligion itself, of a religion which demanded from its followers ser- 
vices directly opposed to the first principles of morality. His tem- 
per, he truly said, was prone to lenity; but his duty to the commu- 
nity forced him to be, in this one instance, severe, He declared that, 
in his judgment, Pagans who had never heard the name of Christ, 
and who were guided only by the light of nature, were more trust- 
worthy members of civil society than men who had been formed in 
the schools of the Popish casuists.+ Locke, in the celebrated treatise 
in which he laboured to show that even the grossest forms of idola- 
try ought not to be prohibited under penal sanctions, contended that 
the Church which taught men not to keep faith with heretics had no 
claim to toleration. 

It is evident that, in such circumstances, the greatest service which 
an English Roman Catholic could render to his brethren in the faith 
was to convince the public that, whatever some too subtle theorists 
might have written, whatever some rash men might, in times of vio- 
lent excitement, have done, his Church did not hold that any end 
could sanctify means inconsistent with morality. And this great ser- 
vice it was in the power of James to render. He was King. He was 
more powerful than any English King had been within the memory 
of the oldest man. It depended on him whether the reproach which 
lay on his religion should be taken away or should be made perma- 
nent. 

Had he conformed to the laws, had he kept his’ promises, had he 
abstained from employing any unrighteous methods ior the propaga: 
tion of his own theological tenets, had he suspended the operation of 
the penal statutes by a large exercise of his unquestionable preroga- 
tive of mercy, but, at the same time, carefully abstained from violat- 
ing the civil or ecclesiastical constitution of the realm, the feeling of 


* Burnet, i. 447. 
t Tillotson’s Sérmon, preached before the House of Commons, Nov. 5, 1678, 
¢ Locke, First Letter on Toleration. 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 441 


his people must have undergone a rapid change. So conspicuous an 
example of good faith punctiliously observed by a Popish prince 
towards a Protestant nation would have quieted the public apprehen- 
sions. Men who saw that a Roman Catholic might safely be suffered , 
to direct the whole executive administration, to command the army 
and navy, to convoke and dissolve the legislature, to appoint the 
Bishops and Deans of the Church-of England, would soon have 
ceased to fear that any great evil would arise from allowing a Roman 
Catholic to be captain of a company or alderman of a borough. It 
is probable that, in a few years, the sect so long detested by the na- 
tion would, with general applause, have been admitted to office and 
to Parliament. 

If, on the other hand, James should attempt to promote the inter- 
est of his Church by violating the fundamental laws of his kingdom 
and the solemn promises which he had repeatedly made in the face 
of the whole world, it could hardly be doubted that the charges 


' which it had been the fashion to bring against the Roman Catholic 


religion would be considered by all Protestants as fully established. 
For, if ever a Roman Catholic could be expected to keep faith with 
heretics, James might have been expected to keep faith with the 
Anglican clergy. To them he owed his crown. — But for their 
strenuous opposition to the Exclusion Bill he would have been a 
banished man. He had repeatedly and emphatically acknowledged 
the debt which he owed to them, and had vowed to maintain them 
in all their legal rights. If he could not be bound by ties like these, 


-it must be evident that, where his superstition was concerned, 


no tie of gratitude or of honour could bind him. To trust him 
would thenceforth be impossible; and, if his people could not trust 
him, what member of his Church could they trust? He was not 
supposed to be constitutionally or habitually treacherous. To his 
blunt manner, and to his want of consideration for the feelings of 
others, he owed a much higher reputation for sincerity than he at all 


deserved. His eulogists affected to call him James the Just. If 


then it should appear that, in turning Papist, he had also turned dis- 
sembler and promisebreaker, what conclusion was likely to be drawn 


~ by a nation already disposed to believe that Popery had a pernicious 


influence on the moral character? 
For these reasons many of the most eminent Roman Catholics of 


- that age, and among them the Supreme Pontiff, were of opinion that 


the interest of their Church in our island would be most effectually 
promoted by a moderate and constitutional policy. But such con- 


siderations had no effect on the slow understanding and imperious - 
temper of James. In his eagerness to remove the disabilities under 


which the professors of his religion lay, he took a course which con- 
vinced the most enlightened and tolerant Protestants of his time 


that disabilities were essential to the safety of the state. To his 


policy the English Roman Catholics owed over three years of lawless 


P 


442 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


and insolent triumph, and a hundred and forty years of subjection 
and degradation. . 

Many members of his Church held commissions in the newly 
raised regiments. This breach of the law for a time passed uncen- 
sured: for men were not disposed to note every irregularity which 
was committed by a King suddenly called upon to defend his crown 
and his life against rebels. But the danger was now over. The 
insurgents had been vanquished and punished. ‘Their unsuccessful 
attempt had strengthened the government which they had hoped to 
overthrow. Yet still James continued to grant commissions to un- 
qualified persons; and speedily it was announced that he was de- 
termined to be no longer bound by the Test Act, that he hoped 
to induce the Parliament to repeal that Act, but that, if the Par- 
liament proved refractory, he would not the less have his own way. 

As soon as this was known, a deep murmur, the forerunner of a 
tempest, gave him warning that the spirit before which his grand- 
father, his father, and his brother had been compelled to recede, 
though dormant, was not extinct. Opposition appeared first in the 
cabinet. Halifax did not attempt to conceal his disgust and alarm. 
At the Council board he courageously gave utterance to those feel- 
ings which, as it soon appeared, pervaded the whole nation. None — 
of his colleagues seconded him; and the subject dropped. He 
was summoned to the royal closet, and had two long conferences — 
with his master. James tried the effect of compliments and _ bland- 
ishments, but to no purpose. Halifax positively refused to promise 
that he would give his vote in the House of Lords for the repeal 
either of the Test Act or of the Habeas Corpus Act. 

Some of those who were about the King advised him not, on the 
eve of the meeting of Parliament, to drive the most eloquent and ac. 
complished statesman of the age into opposition. They represented 
that Halifax loved the dignity of office, that while he continued to 
be Lord President, it would be hardly possible for him to put forth 
his whole strength against the government, and that to dismiss him 
from his high post was to emancipate him from all restraint. The — 
King was peremptory. Halifax was informed that his services 
were no longer needed, and his name was struck out of the Council 
Book.* 

His dismission produced a great sensation not only in England, — 
but also at Paris, at Vienna, and at the Hague: for it was well 
known that he had always laboured to counteract the influence ex- 
ercised by the court of Versailles on English affairs, Lewis ex- 
pressed much pleasure at the news. The ministers of the United Pro- 
vinces and of the House of Austria, on the other hand, extolled the. 
wisdom and virtue of the discarded statesman in a manner which — 
gave serious offence at Whitehall. James was particularly angry with 


_*Council Book. The erasure is dated Oct. 21, 1685. Barillon, Oct. 19-29. 


\ 
HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 443 


the secretary of the imperial legation, who did not scruple to say that 
the eminent service Halifax had performed in the debate on the Ex- 
clusion Bill had been requited with gross ingratitude.* 

It soon became clear that Halifax would have many followers. A 
portion, of the Tories, with their old leader, Danby, at their head, 
began to hold Whiggish language. Even the prelates hinted .that 
there was a point at which the loyalty due to the prince must yield 
to higher considerations. The discontent of the chiefs of the army 
was still more extraordinary and still more formidable, Already 
began to appear the first symptoms of that feeling which, three years 
later, impelled so many officers of high rank to desert the royal 
standard. Men who had never before had a scruple had on a sudden 
become strangely scrupulous. Churchill gently whispered that the 
King was going too far. Kirke, just returned from his Western 
butchery, swore to stand by the Protestant religion. Even if he ab- 
jured the faith in which he had been bred, he would never, he said, 
become a Papist. He was already bespoken. If ever he did aposta- 
tise, he was bound by a solemn promise to the Emperor of Morocco 
to turn Mussulman.t 

While the nation agitated by many strong emotions, looked, anx- 
iously forward to the reassembling of the Houses, tidings, which in- 
creased the prevailing excitement, arrived from France. 

The long and heroic struggle which the Huguenots had maintained 
against the French government had been brought to a final close by 
the ability and vigour of Richelieu. That great statesman vanquish- 
ed them; but he confirmed to them the liberty of conscience which 
had been bestowed on them by the edict of Nantes. They were suf- 
fered, under some restraints of no galling kind, to worship God ac- 
cording to their own ritual, and to write in defence of their own 
doctrine. They were admissible to political and military employ- 
ment; nor did their heresy, during a considerable time, practically 
impede their rise in the world. Some of them commanded the 
armies of the state; and others presided over important depart- 
ments of the civil administration. At length a change took place. 
Lewis the Fourteenth had, from an early age, regarded the Calvin- 
ists with an aversion at once religious and political As a 
zealous Roman Catholic, he detested their theological dogmas. As 
a prince fond of arbitrary power, he detested those republican 
theories which were intermingled with the Genevese divinity. He 
gradually retrenched all the privileges which the schismatics 
enjoyed. He interfered with the education of Protestant chil- 
dren, confiscated property bequeathed to Protestant consistories, 


* Barillon, 2°. 1685; Lewis to Barillon, 2°”; Nov. 6-16. 
Nov. 5. Nov. 6 


+There is a remarkable account of the first appearance of the symptoms of 
discontent among the Tories in a letter of Halifax to Chesterfield, written in 
October, 1685. Burnet, i. 684. 


esl 4 
ian .e) 
fl 


444 : HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


and on frivolous pretexts shut up Protestant Churches. The 
Protestant ministers were harassed by the taxgatherers. The 
Protestant magistrates were deprived of the honour of nobility. 
The Protestant officers of the royal household were informed 
that His Majesty dispensed with. their services. Orders were 
given that no Protestant should be admitted into the legal. pro- 
fession. The oppressed sect showed some faint signs of that 
spirit which in the preceding century had bidden defiance to the 
whole power of the House of Valois. Massacres and executions fol- 
lowed. Dragoons were quartered in the towns where the heretics 
were numerous, and in the country seats of the heretic gentry; and the 
cruelty and licentiousness of these rude missionaries was sanctioned 
or leniently censured by the government. Still, however, the edict 
of Nantes, though practically violated in its most essential provisions, 
had not been formally rescinded ; and the King repeatedly declared 
in solemn public acts that he was resolved to maintain it. But the 
bigots and flatterers who had his ear gave him advice which he was 
but too willing to take. They represented to him that his rigorous 
policy had been eminently successful, that little or no resistance had 
been made to his will, that thousands of Huguenots had already been 
converted, that, if he would take the one decisive step which yet re- 
mained, those who were still obstinate would speedily submit, France 
would be purged from the taint of heresy, and her prince would have 
earned a heavenly crown not less glorious than that of Saint Lewis, 
These arguments prevailed. The final blow was struck. The edict 
of Nantes was revoked; and a crowd of decrees against the sectaries 
appeared in rapid succession. Boys and girls were torn from their 
parents and sent to be educated in convents. All Calvinistic minis- 
ters were commanded either to abjure their religion or to quit their 
country within a fortnight. The other professors of the reformed 
faith were forbidden to leave the kingdom; and, in order to prevent 
them from making their escape, the outports and frontiers were 
strictly guarded. It was thought that the flocks, thus separated 
from the evil shepherds, would soon return to the true fold. But in 
spite of all the vigilance of the military police there was a vast emi- 
gration. It was calculated that, in a few months, fifty thousand 
families quitted France for ever. Nor were the refugees such as a 
country can well spare. They were generally persons of intelligent 
minds, of industrious habits, and of austere morals. In thelist are to 
be found names eminent in war, in science, in literature, and in art. 
Some of the exiles offered their swords to William of Orange, and 
distinguished themselves by the fury with which they fought against 
their persecutor. Others avenged themselves with weapons still 
more formidable, and, by means of the presses of Holland, England, 
and Germany, inflamed, during thirty years, the public mind of 
Europe against the French government. A more peaceful class 
erected silk manufactories in the eastern suburb of London. One 


. HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 445 


detachment of emigrants taught the Saxons to make the stuffs and 
hats of which France had hitherto enjoyed a monopoly. Another 
planted the first vines in the neighbourhood of the Cape of Good 
Hope. 

In ordinary circumstances the courts of Spain and of Rome would 
have eagerly applauded a prince who had made vigorous war on 
heresy. But such was the hatred inspired by the injustice and 
haughtiness of Lewis that, when he became a persecutor, the courts 
of Spain and Rome took the side of religious liberty, and loudly re- 
probated the cruelty of turning a savage and licentious soldiery loose 
on an unoffending people.+ One cry of grief and rage rose from the 
whole of Protestant Europe. The tidings of the revocation of the 
edict of Nantes reached England about a week before the day to 
which the Parliament stood adjourned. It was clear then that the spirit 
of Gardiner and of Alva was still the spirit of the Roman Catholic 
Church. Lewis was not inferior to James in generosity and human- 
ity, and was certainly far superior to James in all the abilities and ac- 
‘quirements of astatesman. Lewis had, like James, repeatedly prom- 
ised to respect the privileges of his Protestant subjects. Yet Lewis 
was now avowedly apersecutor of the reformed religion. What reason 
was there, then, to doubt that James waited only for an opportunity 
to follow the example ? He was already forming, in defiance of the 
law, a military force officered to a great extent by Roman Catholics. 
Was there anything unreasonable in the apprehension that this 
force might be employed to do what the French dragoons had done ? 
f . . r1 

James was almost as much disturbed as his subjects by the con- 
duct of the court of Versailles. In truth, that court had acted as if 
it had.meant to embarrass and annoy him. He was about to ask 
from a Protestant legislature a full toleration for Roman Catholics. 
Nothing, therefore, could be more unwelcome to him than the in- 
telligence that, in a neighbouring country, toleration had just been 
withdrawn by a Roman Catholic government from Protestants. His 
vexation was increased by a speech which the Bishop of Valence, 
in the name of the Gallican clergy, addressed at this time to Lewis 
the Fourteenth. The pious Sovereign of England, the orator said, 
looked to the most Christian King for support against a heretica’ 
nation. It was remarked that the members of the House of Com 
mons showed particular anxiety to procure copies of this harangue, 


* The contemporary tracts in various languages on the subject of this perse- 
cution are innumerable. An eminently clear, terse, and spirited summary will 
be found in Voltaire’s Siécle de Louis XIV. 

+ “ Misionarios embotados,”’ says Ronquillo. ‘‘ Apostoli armati,’’ says Inno- 
cent. There is, in the Mackintosh Collection, a remarkable letter on this sub- 


ject from Ronquillo, dated sere 1686. See Venier, Relatione di Francia, 1689 
ril 5, 
quoted by Professor Ranke in his Rémischen Pipste, book viii. 
M. E. i.—15 


446 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


and that it was read by all Englishmen with indignation and alarm.* 
James was desirous to counteract the impression which these things 
had made, and was also at that moment by no means unwilling to 
let all Europe see that he was not the slave of France. He therefore 
declared publicly that he disapproved of the manner in which the 
Huguenots had been treated, granted to the exiles some relief from 
his privy purse, and, by letters under his great seal, invited his sub- 
jects to imitate his liberality. In avery few months it became clear 
that all this compassion was feigned for the purpose of cajoling his 
Parliament, that he regarded the refugees with mortal hatred, and 
that he regretted nothing so much as his own inability to do what 
Lewis had done. . . 

On the ninth of November the Houses met. The Commons were 
summoned to the bar of the Lords; and the King spoke from the 
_ throne. His speech had been composed by himself. He congratu- 
lated his loving subjects on the suppression of the rebellion in the 
West; but he added that the speed with which that rebellion had risen 
to a formidable height, and the length of time during which it had 
continued to rage, must convince al! men how little dependence could 
be placed on the militia. He had, therefore, made additions to the 
regular army. The charge of that army would henceforth be more 
than double of what it had been; and he trusted that the Commons 
would grant him the means of defraying the increased expense. He 
then informed his hearers that he had employed some officers who 
had not taken the test; but he knew those officers to be fit for public 
trust. He feared that artful men might avail themselves of this irreg- 
ularity to disturb the harmony which existed between himself and 
his Parliament. But he would speak: out. He was determined not 
to part with servants on whose fidelity he could rely, and whose help 
he might perhaps soon need.t+ 

This explicit declaration that he had broken the laws which were 
regarded by the nation as the chief safeguards of the established re- 
ligion, and that he was resolved to persist in breaking those laws, 
was not likely to soothe the excited feelings of his subjects. The 
Lords, seldom disposed to take the lead in opposition to a govern- 
ment, consented to vote him formal thanks for what he had said. 
But the Commons were in a less complying mood. When they had 
returned to their own House there was a long silence; and the faces 
of many of the most respectable members expressed deep concern. 
At length Middleton rose and moved the House to go instantly into 
committee on the King’s speech; but Sir Edmund Jennings, a zealous 
Tory from Yorkshire, who was supposed to speak the sentiments of 


* “Mi dicono che tutti questi parliamentarii ne hanno voluto copia, il che 
assolutamente avra causate passime impressioni,’’—Adda, Nov. 9-19, 1685. See 
Evelyn’s Diary, Nov. 3. 

+ Lords’ Journals, Nov. 9, 1685, ‘* Vengo assicurato,” says Adda, ‘che S. M. 
stessa abbia composto il discorso.”’—Despatch of Nov, 16-26, 1685, 


\ 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 447 


Danby, protested against this course, and demanded time for con- 
‘sideration. Sir Thomas Clarges, maternal uncle of the Duke of 
Albemarle, and long distinguished in Parliament as a man of busi- 
ness and a vigilant steward of the public money, took the same side. 
The feeling of the House could not be mistaken. Sir John Ernley, 
Chancellor of the Exchequer, insisted that the delay should not ex- 
ceed forty-eight hours; but he was overruled; and it was resolved 
that the discussion should be postponed for three days.* 
The interval was well employed by those who took the lead against 
the Court. They had indeed no light work to perform. In three 
days a country party was to be organised. The difficulty of the task 
is in our age not easily to be appreciated; for in our age all the nation 
assists at every deliberation of the Lords and Commons. What is 
‘said by the leaders of the ministry and of the opposition after mid- 
night is read by the whole metropolis at dawn, by the inhabitants of. 
Northumberland and Cornwall in the afternoon, and in Ireland and 
‘the Highlands of Scotland on the morrow. In our age, therefore, the 
stages of legislation, the rules of debate, the tactics of faction, the 
opinions, temper, and style of every active member of either house, 
are familiar to hundreds of thousands. Every man who now enters 
Parliament possesses what, in the seventeenth century, would have 
been called a great stock of parliamentary knowledge. Such knowl- 
edge was then to be obtained only by actual parliamentary service. 
The difference between an old and a new member was as great as the 
difference between a veteran soldier and a recruit just taken from the 
plough; and James’s Parliament contained a most unusual proportion 
of new members, who had brought from their country seats to West- 
minster no political knowledge and many violent prejudices. These 
gentlemen hated the Papists, but hated the Whigs not less intensely; 
and regarded the King with superstitious veneration. To form an 
opposition out of such materials was a feat which required the most 
skilful and delicate management. Some men of great weight, how- 
ever, undertook the work, and performed it with success. Several 
experienced Whig politicians who had not seats in that Parliament, 
gave useful advice and information. On the day preceding that 
which had been fixed for the debate, many meetings were held at 
which the leaders instructed the novices; and it soon appeared that 
‘these exertions had not been thrown away.t 
_ The foreign embassies were all in a ferment. It was well under- 
stood that a few days would now decide the great question, whether 
the King of England was or was not to be the vassal of the King of 
France. The ministers of the House of Austria were most anxious 


* Commons’ Journals; Bramston’s Memoirs; James Van Leeuwen to the 
States General, Nov. 10-20, 1685. Van Leeuwen was secretary of the’Dutch em- 
bassy, and conducted the correspondence in the absence of Van Citters. As to 
Clarges, see Burnet, i. 98. 

+ Barillon, Nov, 16--26, 1685. 


4 


that James should give satisfaction to his Parliament. Innocent had 
sent to London two persons charged to inculcate moderation, both by 
admonition and by example. One of them was John Leyburn, an 
English Dominican, who had been secretary to Cardinal Howard, and 
who, with some learning and arich vein of natural humour, was the 
most cautious, dexterous, and taciturn of men. He had recently been 
consecrated Bishop of Adrumetum, and named Vicar Apostolic in 
Great Britain. Ferdinand, Count of Adda, an Italian of no eminent 
abilities, but of mild temper and courtly manners, had been appoint- 
ed Nuncio. These functionaries were eagerly welcomed by James. 
No Roman Catholic Bishop had exercised spiritual functions in the 
island during more than half a century. No Nuncio. had been re- 
ceived here during the hundred and twenty-seven years which had 
elapsed since the death of Mary. Leyburn was lodged in Whitehall, . 
and received a pension of a thousand pounds a year. Adda did not 
yet assume a public character. He passed fora foreigner of rank 
whom curiosity had brought to London, appeared daily at court, and 
was treated with high consideration. Both the Papal emissaries did 
their best to diminish, as much as possible, the odium inseparable 
from the offices which they filled, and to restrain the rash zeal of 
James. The Nuncio, in particular, declared that nothing could be 
more injurious to the interests of the Church of Rome than a rupture 
between the King and the Parliament.* 

Barillon was active on the other side. The instructions which he 
received from Versailles on this occasion well deserve to be studied; 
for they furnish a key to the policy systematically pursued by his 
master towards England during the twenty years which preceded our 
revolution. The advices from Madrid, Lewis wrote, were alarming. 
Strong hopes were entertained there that James would ally himself 
closely with the House of Austria, as soon as he should be assured 
that his Parliament would give him no trouble. In these circum- 
stances, it was evidently the interest of France that the Parliament 
should prove refractory. Barillon was therefore directed to act, with 
all possible precautions against detection, the part of a makebait. At 
court he was to omit no opportunity of stimulating the religious zeal 
and the kingly pride of James; but at the same time it might be de- 
sirable to have some secret communication with the malecontents. 
Such communication would indeed be hazardous, and would require 
the utmost adroitness; yet it might perhaps be in the power of the 


448 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


* Dodd’s Church History; Van Leeuwen, Nov. 17-27, 1685; Barillon, Dec. 24, 
1685. Barillon says of Adda, ‘‘ On l’avoit fait prévenir que la sureté et l’avantage 


des Catholiques consistoient dans une réunion entiére de sa Masoet Butera 
u ept. 
et de son parlement.’’ Letters of Innocent to James, dated ae and Oct. 3, 


1685; Despatches of Adda, Nov. 9-19 and Nov. 16-26, 1685. The very interesting 
correspondence of Adda, copied from the Papal archives, is in the British Mu- 
seum, 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 449 


Ambassador, without committing himself or his government, to ani- 
mate the zeal of the opposition for the laws and liberties of England, 
and to let it be understood that those laws and liberties were not re- 
garded by his master with an unfriendly eye.* 

Lewis, when he dictated these instructions, did not foresee how 
speedily and how completely his uneasiness would be removed by the 
obstinacy and stupidity of James. On the twelfth of November the 
House of Commons resolved itself into a committee on the royal 
speech. The Solicitor General, Heneage Finch, was in the chair. 
The debate was conducted by the chiefs of the new country party 

-with rare tact and address. No expression indicating disrespect to 
the Sovereign or sympathy for rebels was suffered to escape. The 
Western insurrection was always mentioned with abhorrence. No- 

thing was said of the barbarities of Kirke and Jeffreys. It was ad- 
mitted that the heavy expenditure which had been occasioned by the 
late troubles justified the King in asking some further supply; but 
strong objections were made to the augmentation of the army and to 
the infraction of the Test Act. 

The subject of the Test Act the courtiers appear to have carefully 
avoided. They harangued, however, with some force on the great 
superiority of a regular army toa militia. One of them tauntingly 
asked whether the defence of the kingdom was to be entrusted to the 
beefeaters. Another said that he should be glad to know how the 
Devonshire trainbands, who had fled in confusion before Monmouth’s 
scythemen, would have faced the household troops of Lewis. But 
these arguments had little effect on Cavaliers who still remembered 

with bitterness the stern rule of the Protector. The general feeling 
was forcibly expressed by the first of the Tory country gentlemen of 
England, Edward Seymour. He admitted that the militia was not 
in a satisfactory state, but maintained that it might be remodelled. 
The remodelling might require money; but, for his own part, he 
would rathergive a million to keep up a force from which he had no- 
thing to fear, than half a million to keep up a force of which he must 
ever be afraid. Let the trainbands be disciplined; let the navy be 
strengthened; and the country would be secure. <A standing army 
was at best a mere drain on the public resources. The soldier was 
withdrawn from all useful labour. He produced nothing: he con- 
sumed the fruits of the industry of other men; and he domineered 
over those by whom he was supported. But the nation was now 
threatened, not only with a standing army, but with a Popish stand- 
ing army, with a standing army officered by men who might be very 
amiable and honourable, but who were on principle enemies to the 
constitution of the realm. Sir William Twisden, member for the 

county of Kent, spoke on the same side with great keenness and loud 


* This most remarkable despatch bears date the 9-19th of November 1685, and 
will be found in the Appendix to Mr. Fox’s History. 


~ 


450 : HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


applause. Sir Richard Temple, one of the few Whigs who had a seat 
in that Parliament, dexterously accommodating his speech to the 
temper of his audience, reminded the House that a standing army had 
been found, by experience, to be as dangerous to the just authority of 

rinces as to the liberty of nations. Sir John Maynard, the most 

earned lawyer of his time, took part in the debate. He was now 
more than eighty years old, and could well remember the political 
contests of the reign of James the First. He had sate in the Long 
Parliament, and had taken part with the Roundheads, but had always 
been for lenient councils, and had laboured to bring about a general 
reconciliation. His abilities, which age had not impaired, and his” 
professional knowledge, which had long overawed all Westminster 
Hall, commanded the ear of the House of Commons. He, too, de- 
clared himself against the augmentation of the regular forces. 

After much debate it was resolved that a supply should be granted 
to the Crown; but it was also resolved that a bill should be brought 
in for making the militia more efficient. This last resolution was 
tantamount to a declaration against the standing army. The King 
was greatly displeased; and it was whispered that, if things went on 
thus, the session would not be of long duration.* 

On the morrow the contention was renewed. The Janguage of the 
country party was perceptibly bolder and sharper than on the preced- 
ing day. That paragraph of the King’s speech which related to sup- 

ly preceded the paragraph which related to the test. On this ground 

fiddleton proposed that the paragraph relating to supply should be 
first considered in committee. The opposition moved the previous 
question. They contended that the reasonable and constitutional 
practice was to grant no money till grievances had been redressed, 
and that there would be an end of this practice if the House thought 
itself bound servilely to follow the order in which matters were men- 
tioned by the King from the throne. 

The division was taken on the question whether Middleton’s motion 
should be put. The Noes were ordered bythe Speaker to go forth 
into the lobby. They resented this much, and complained loudly of 
his servility and partiality: for they conceived that, according to the 
intricate and subtle rule which was then in force, and which, in our 


* Commons’ Journals, Nov. 12, 1685; Van Leeuwen, Nov. 13-23; Barillon, Nov. 
16-26; Sir John Bramston’s Memoirs. The best report of the debates of the 
Commons in November 1685, is one of which the history is somewhat curious. 
There are two manuscript copies of it in the British Museum, Harl. 7187; Lans. 
258. In these copies the names of the speakers are given at length. The author 
of the Life of James published in 1702 transcribed this report, but gave only the - 
initials of the speakers. The editors of Chandler’s Debates and of the Parlia- 
mentary History guessed from these initials at the names, and sometimes 

uessed wrong. They ascribe to Waller a very remarkable speech, which will 

ereafter be mentioned, and which was really made by Windham, member for 
Salisbury. It was with some concern that I found myself forced to give up the 
belief that the last words uttered in public by Waller were so honourable to— 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 451 


time, was superseded by a more rational and convenient practice, 


_ they were entitled to keep their seats; and it was held by all the par- 


liamentary tacticians of that age that the party which stayed in the 
House had an advantage over the party which went out; for the ac- 
commodation on the benches was so deficient that no person who had 
been fortunate enough to get a good seat was willing to lose it. 
Neverfheless, to the dismay of the ministers, many persons on whose 
votes the Court had absolutely depended were seen moving towards 
the door. Among them was Charles Fox, Paymaster of the Forces, 
and son of Sir Stephen Fox, Clerk of the Green Cloth. The Pay- 
master had been induced by his friends to absent himself during part 
of the discussion. But his anxiety had become insupportable. He 


-¢ame down to the Speaker’s chamber, heard part of the debate, with- 


drew, and, after hesitating for an hour or two between conscience 
and five thousand pounds a year, took a manly resolution and rushed 
into the House just in time to vote. Two officersof the army, Colonel 
John Darcy, son of the Lord Conyers, and Captain James Kendall, 
withdrew to the lobby. Middleton went down to the bar and expos- 


_tulated with them. He particularly addressed himself to Kendall, a 


needy retainer of the Court, who had, in obedience to the royal man- 
date, been sent to Parliament by a packed corporation in Cornwall, 
and who had recently obtained a grant of a hundred head of rebels 
sentenced to transportation. ‘‘ Sir,” said Middleton, ‘‘have not you 
a troop of horse in His Majesty’s service?” ‘‘ Yes, my Lord,” an- 
swered Kendall: ‘‘ but my elder brother is just dead, and has left me 
seven hundred a year.” 

When the tellers had done their office it appeared that the Ayes 
were one hundred and eighty-two, and the Noes one hundred and 
eigity-three. In that House of Commons which had been brought 
together by the unscrupulous use of chicanery, of corruption, and of 
violence, in that House of Commons of which James had said that 
more than eleven-twelfths of the members were such as he would 
himself have nominated, the Court had sustained a defeat on a vital 
question.* 

In consequence of this vote the expressions which the King had 
used respecting the test were taken into consideration. It was re- 
solved, after much discussion, that an address should be presented to 
him, reminding him that he could not legally continue to employ 
officers who refused to qualify, and pressing him to give such direc- 
tions as might quiet the apprehensions and jealousies of his people. + 

A motion was then made that the Lords should be requested to join 


in the address. Whether this motion was honestly made by the oppo- 


* Commons’ Journals, Nov. 13, 1685; Bramston’s Memoirs; Reresby’s Memoirs; 
Barillon, Nov. 16-26; Van Leeuwen, Nov. 13-23; Memoirs of Sir Stephen Fox, 
1717; The Case of the Church of England fairly stated; Burnet, 1 666, and 
Speaker Onslow’s note. 

+ Commons’ Journals, Nov. 13, 1685; Harl. MS. 7187; Lansdowne MS. 253. 


- 


452 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


sition, in the hope that the concurrence of the peers would add weight 
to the remonstrance, or artfully made by the courtiers, in the hope 
that a breach between the Houses might be the consequence, it is 
now impossible to discover. The proposition was rejected.* 

' The House then resolved itself into a committee, for the purpose of 
considering the amount of supply to be granted. The King wanted 
fourteen hundred thousand pounds: but the ministers saw that it 
would be vain to ask for so large a sum. The Chancellor of the Ex- 
chequer mentioned twelve hundred thousand pounds. The chiefs of 
the opposition replied that to vote for such a grant would be to vote 
for the permanence of the present military establishment: they were 
disposed to give only so much as might suffice to keep the regular 
troops on foot till the militia could be remodelled; and they therefore 
proposed four hundred thousand pounds. The courtiers exclaimed 
against this motion as unworthy of the House and disrespectful to 
the King: but they were manfully encountered. One of the Western 
members, John Windham, who sate for Salisbury, especially distin- 
guished himself. He had always, he said, looked with dread and 
aversion on standing armies; and recent experience had strengthened 
those feelings. He then ventured to touch on a theme which had 
hitherto been studiously avoided. He described the desolation of the 
Western counties. The people, he said, were weary of the oppression 
of the troops, weary of free quarters, of depredations, of still fouler 
crimes which the law called felonies, but for which, when perpetrated 
by this class of felons, no redress could be obtained. ‘The King’s 
servants had indeed told the House that excellent rules had been laid 
down for the government of the army; but none could venture to say 
that these rules had been observed. What, then, was the inevitable 
inference? Did not the contrast between the paternal injunctions 
issued from the throne and the insupportable tyranny of the soldiers 
prove that the army was even now too strong for the prince as well 
as for the people? The Commons might surely, with perfect consist- 
ency, while they reposed entire confidence in the intentions of His 


* The conflict of testimony on this subject is most extraordinary; and, after 
long consideration, I must own that the balance seems to me to be exactly 
poised. In the Life of James (1702), the motionis represented as a court motion. 
This account is confirmed by a remarkable passage in the Stuart Papers, which 
was corrected by the pretender himself. (Life of James the Second, ii. 55.) On 
the other hand, Reresby, who was present, and Barillon, who ought to have 
been wellinformed, represent the motion as an opposition motion. The Har- 
leian and Lansdowne manuscripts differ in the single word on which the whole 
depends. Unfortunately Bramston was not at the House that day. James Van 
Leeuwen mentions the motion and the division, but does not add a word which 
can throw the smallest light on the state of parties. I must own myself unable 
to draw with confidence any inference from the names of the tellers, Sir Joseph 
Williamson and Sir Francis Russell for the majority, and Lord Ancram and Sir 

Henry Goodricke for the minority. I should have thought Lord Ancram 
Awe to go with the court, and Sir Henry Goodricke likely to go with the oppo- 
sition, 


\ ee as ‘ y 


ee 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 453 


Majesty, refuse to make any addition to a force which it was clear 
that His Majesty could not manage. 

The motion that the sum to be granted should not exceed four 
hundred thousand pounds, was lost by twelve votes. This victory 
of the ministers was little better than a defeat. The leaders of the 
country party, nothing disheartened, retreated a little, made an- 
other stand, and proposed the sum of seven hundred thousand pounds. 
The committee divided again, and the courtiers were beaten by two 
hundred and twelve votes to one hundred and seventy.* 

On the following day the Commons went in procession to White- 
hall with their address on the subject of the test. The King received 
them on his throne. The address was drawn up in respectful and 
affectionate language; for the great majority of those who had 
voted for it were zealously and even superstitiously loyal, and had 
readily agreed to insert some complimentary phrases, and to omit 
every word which the courtiers thought offensive. The answer of 
James was acold and sullen reprimand. He declared himself greatly 
displeased and amazed that the Commons should have profited so 
little by the admonition which he had given them. ‘* But,” said he, 
“however you may proceed on your part, I will be very steady in 
all the promises which I have made to you.” + 

The Commons reassembled in their chamber, discontented, yet 
somewhat overawed. To most of them the King was still an object 
of filial reverence. Three more years filled with bitter injuries, and 
with not less bitter insults, were scarcely sufficient to dissolve the 
ties which bound the Cavalier gentry to the throne. 

The Speaker repeated the substance of the King’s reply. There 
was, for some time, a solemn stillness: then the order of the day was 
read in regular course; and the House went into committee on the 
bill for remodelling the militia. 

In a few hours, however, the spirit of the opposition revived. 
When, at the close of the day, the Speaker resumed the chair, Whar- 
ton, the boldest and most active of the Whigs, proposed that a time 
should be appointed for taking His Majesty’s answer into considera- 
tion. John Coke, member for Derby, though a noted Tory, sec- 
onded Wharton. ‘‘I hope,” he said, ‘‘that we are all Englishmen, 
and that we shall not be frightened from our duty by a few high 
words.” : 

It was manfully, but not wisely, spoken. The whole House was 
in a tempest. ‘‘Take down his words,” ‘‘To the bar,” ‘‘To the 
Tower,” resounded from every side. Those who were most lenien* 
proposed that the offender should be reprimanded: but the min- 
isters vehemently insisted that he should be sent to prison. The 
House might pardon, they said, offences committed against itself, 


* Commons’ Journals, Nov. 16, 1685; Har]. MS. 7187; Lansdowne MS. 235. 
+ Commons’ Journals, Nov. 17, 18, 1685. 


454 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


put had no right to pardon an insult offered to the Crown. Coke — 
was sent to the Tower. ‘The indiscretion of one man had deranged 
the whole system of tactics which, had been so ably concerted by the 
chiefs of the opposition. It was in vain that, at that moment, Ed- 
ward Seymour attempted to rally his followers, exhorted them to fix 
a day for discussing the King’s answer, and expressed his confidence 
that the discussion would be conducted with the respect due from 
subjects to the sovereign. The members were so much cowed by 
the royal displeasure, and so much incensed by the rudeness of Coke, 
that it would not have been safe to divide.* 

The House adjourned; and the ministers flattered themselves that 
the spirit of opposition was quelled. But on the morrow, the nine. 
teenth of November, new and alarming symptoms appeared. ‘The 
time had arrived for taking into consideration the petitions which 
had been presented from all parts of England against the late elec- 
tions. When, on the first meeting of the Parliament, Seymour had ~ 
complained of the force and fraud by which the government had 
prevented the sense of constituent bodies from being fairly taken, he 
had found no seconder. But many who had then flinched from his 
side had subsequently taken heart, and, with Sir John Lowther, 
member for Cumberland, at their head, had, before the recess, sug- 
gested that there ought to be an enquiry into the abuses which had 
so much excited the public mind. The House was now in a much 
more angry temper; and many voices were boldly raised in menace 
and accusation. The ministers were told that the nation expected, 
and should have, signal redress. Meanwhile it was dexterously inti: 
mated that the best atonement which a gentleman who had been 
brought into the House by irregular means could make to the public 
was to use his ill acquired power in defence of the religion and lib- 
erties of his country. No member, who, in that crisis, did his duty, 
had anything to fear. It might be necessary to unseat him; but the 
whole influence of the opposition should be employed to procure his 
re-election. + 

On the same day it became clear that the spirit of opposition had 
spread from the Commons to the Lords, and even to the episcopal | 
bench. William Cavendish, Earl of Devonshire, took the lead in the — 
Upper House; and he was well qualified to do so. In wealth and in- 
fluence he was second to none of the English nobles; and the general 
voice designated him as the finest gentleman of his time. His mag: 
nificence, his taste, his talents, his classical learning, his high spirit, 


* Commons’ Journals, Nov. 18, 1685; Harl. MS. 7187; Lansdowne MS. 2537 — 
Burnet, i. 667. ; 

+ Lonsdale’s Memoirs. Burnet tells us (i. 667) that a sharp debate about elec’ — 
tions took place in the House of Commons after Coke’s committal. It must ~ 
therefore have been on the 19th of November; for Coke was committed late on © 
the 18th, and the Parliament was prorogued on the 20th. Burnet’s narrative is — 
confirmed by the Journals, from which it appears that several elections were — 
under discussion on the 19th, 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 455 


_the grace and urbanity of his manners, were admitted by his enemies. 
His eulogists, unhappily, could not pretend that his morals had es- 
caped untainted from the widespread contagion of that age. Though 
an enemy of Popery and of arbitrary power, he had been averse to 
extreme courses, had been willing, when the Exclusion Bill was 
lost, to agree to a compromise, and had never been concerned in the 
iflegal and imprudent schemes which had brought discredit on the 
Whig party. But, while blaming part of the conduct of his friends, 
he had not failed to perform zealously the most arduous and perilous 
duties of friendship. . He had stood near Russell at the bar, had 
parted from him on the sad morning of the execution with close 
embraces and with many bitter tears, nay, had offered to manage an 
escape at the hazard of his own life.* This great nobleman now 
igi that a day should be fixed for considering the royal speech. 

t was contended, on the other side, that the Lords, by voting thanks 
for the speech, had precluded themselves from complaining of it. 
But this objection was treated with contempt by Halifax. ‘‘Such 
thanks,” he said with the sarcastic pleasantry in which he excelled, 
“imply no approbation. We are thankful whenever our gracious 
Sovereign deigns to speak to us. Especially thankful are we when, 
as on the present occasion, he speaks out, and gives us fair warning 
of what we are to suffer.”+ Doctor Henry Compton, Bishop of Lon- 
don, spoke strongly for the motion. Though not gifted with emi- 
nent abilities, nor deeply versed in the learning of his profession, he 
was always heard by the House with respect; for he was one of. 
the few clergymen who could, in that age, boast of noble blood. 
His own loyalty, and the loyalty of his family, had been signally 
proved. His father, the second Earl of Northampton, had fought 
bravely for King Charles the First, and, surrounded by the parlia- 
mentary soldiers, had fallen, sword in hand, refusing to give or take 
quarter. The Bishop himself, before he was ordained, had borne 
arms in the Guards; and, though he generally did his best to preserve 
the gravity and sobriety befitting a prelate, some flashes of his mill1- 
tary spirit would, to the last, occasionally break forth. He had been 
entrusted with the religious education of the two Princesses, and 
had acquitted himself of that important duty in a manner which had 
satisfied all good Protestants, and had secured to him considerable 
influence over the minds of his pupils, especially of the Lady Anne.t 


_* Burnet, i. 560; Funeral Sermon of the Duke of Devonshire, preached by 
Kennet, 1708; Travels of Cosmo III. in England; The Hazard of a Death-bed 
Repentance argued from the Remorse of Conscience_of W——. late D—— of 
D-——, when dying, a most avsurd pamphlet by John Dunton which reached a 
tenth edition. 

+ Bramston’s Memoirs. Burnet is incorrect both as to the time when the re- 
inark was made and as to the person who mideit. In Halifax’s Letter to a 
Dissenter will be found a remarkable allusion to this discussion. 

+ Wood, Ath, Ox.; Gooch’s Funeral Sermon on Bishop Compton. 


456 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


He now declared that he was empowered to speak the sense of his 
brethren, and that 1n their opinion and in his own, the whole civil 
and ecclesiastical constitution of the realm was in danger. 

One of the most remarkable speeches of that day was made by a 
young man, whose eccentric career was destined to amaze Europe. 
This was Charles Mordaunt, Viscount Mordaunt, widely renowned, 

-many years later, as Earl of Peterborough. Already he had given 
abundant proofs of his courage, of his capacity, and of that strange 
unsoundness of mind which made his courage and capacity almost 
useless to his country. Already he had distinguished himself as a 
wit and a scholar, as a soldier and a sailor. He had even set his 
heart on rivalling Bourdaloue and Bossuet. ‘Though an avowed 
freethinker, he had sate up all night at sea to compose sermons, and 
had with great difficulty been prevented from edifying the crew of a 
man of war with his pious oratory.* He now addressed the House 
of Peers, for the first time, with characteristic eloquence, sprightli- 
ness, and audacity. He blamed the Commons for not having taken 
a bolder line. ‘‘ They have been afraid,” he said, ‘‘to speak out, 
They have talked of apprehensions and jealousies. What have ap- 
prehension and jealousy to do here? Apprehension and jealousy 
are the feelings with which we regard future and uncertain evils. 
The evil which we are considering is neither future nor uncertain. 
A standing army exists. It is officered by Papists. We have no 
foreign enemy. There is no rebellion in theland. For what, then, 
is this force maintained except for the purpose of subverting our 
laws, and establishing that arbitrary power which is so justly ab- 
horred by Englishmen?” t+ 

Jeffreys spoke against the motion in the coarse and savage style of 
which he was a master; but he soon found that it was not quite so 


easy to browbeat the proud and powerful barons of England in their — 
own hall as to intimidate advocates whose bread depended on his 


favour or prisoners whose necks were at his mercy. A man whose 


life has been passed in attacking and domineering, whatever may be — 


his talents and courage, generally makes a poor figure when he is 
vigorously assailed: for, being unaccustomed to stand on the defen 
sive, he becomes confused; and the knowledge that all those whom 
he has insulted are enjoying his confusion confuses him still more, 


* Teonage’s Diary. 


+ Barillon has given the best account of this debate. I will extract his report . 


of Mordaunt’sspeech. ‘‘ Milord Mordaunt, quoique jeune, parla avec éloquence 
et force. Il dit que la question n’étoit pas réduite comme la Chambre des Com- 
munes le prétendoit, a4 guérir des jalousies et défiances, qui avoient lieu dans 
les choses incertaines, mais que Ce qui se passoit ne |’étoit pas, qu’il y avoit une 


armée sur pied qui subsistoit, et qui étoit remplie d’officiers Catholiques, qui ne ~ 


pouvoit étre conservée que pour le renversement des loix, et que la subsistance 
de armée, quand il n’y a aucune guerre ni au dedans ni au dehors, étoit ’étab- 
lissement du gouvernment arbitraire, pour lequel les Anglois ont une aversior 
si bien fonée.” 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 457 


Jeffreys was now, for the first time since he had become a great man, 


encountered on equal terms by adversaries who did not fear him. 
To the general delight, he passed at once from the extreme of inso- 
lence to the extreme of meanness, and could not refrain from weep- 
ing with rage and vexation.* Nothing indeed was wanting to his 
humiliation, for the House was crowded by about a hundred peers, 
a larger number than had voted even on the great day of the Exclu- 
sion Bill. The King, too, was present. His brother had been in the 
habit of attending the sittings of the Lords for amusement, and used 
often to say that a debate was as entertaining as a comedy. James 
came, not to be diverted, but in the hope that his presence might im- 
pose some restraint on the discussion. He was disappointed. The 
sense of the House was so strongly manifested that, after a closing 
speech, of great keenness, from Halifax, the courtiers did not ven- 
ture to divide. An early day was fixed for taking the royal speech 
into consideration; and it was ordered that every peer who was in or 


near the capital should be in his place. + 


On the following morning the King came down, in his robes, to 
the House of Lords. The Usher of the Black Rod summoned the 
Commons to the bar; and the Chancellor announced that the Parlia- 
ment was prorogued to the tenth of February.{ The members who 
had voted against the Court were dismissed from the public service. 
Charles Fox quitted the Pay Office; the Bishop of London ceased to 
be Dean of the Chapel Royal; and his name was struck out of the list 
of Privy Councillors. 

The effect of the prorogation was to put an end to a legal proceed- 
ing of the highest importance. Thomas Grey, Earl of Stamford, 
sprung from one of the most illustrious houses of England, had been 
recently arrested and committed close prisoner to the Tower on a 
charge of high treason. He was accused of having been concerned 
in the Rye House plot. <A true bill had been found against him by 
the grand jury of the City of London, and had been removed into 
the House of Lords, the only court before which a temporal peer 
can, during a session of Parliament, be arraigned for any offence 
higher than a misdemeanour. The first of December had been fixed 


* He was very easily moved to tears. ‘‘ He couldnot,” says the author of the 
Panegyric, ‘“‘ refrain from weeping on bold affronts.’? And again: ‘‘They talk 
of his hectoring and proud carriage; what could be more humble than for a 
man in his great post tocry andsob?’’ Inthe Answer to the Panegyric it is said 
that ‘his having no command of his tears spoiled him for a hypocrite.” 

t Lords’ Journals, Nov. 19, 1685. Barillon, por ; Dutch Despatch, Nov. 20- 
30; Luttrell’s Diary, Nov. 19; Burnet, i. 665. The closing speech of Halifax is 
mentioned by the Nuncio in his despatch of Nov. 16-26. Adda, about a month 
later, bears strong testimony to Halifax’s powers. ‘‘Da que to uomo che 
hasgran credito nel parlamento, e grande eloquenza, non si possono attendere 
ape a oO Diet sain e nel partito Regio’ non vi 6 un uomo da contrapporsi.”’ 

ec. : 

¢ Lords’ and Commons’ Journals, Nov. 20, 1685. 


iY 


for the trial; and orders had been given that Westminster. Hall 
should be fitted up with seats and hangings. In consequence of the 
prorogation, the hearing of the cause was postponed for an indefinite 
period, and Stamford soon regained his liberty. * 

Three other Whigs of great eminence were in confinement when 
the session closed, Charles Gerard, Lord Gerard of Brandon, eldest 
son of the Earl of Macclesfield, John Hampden, grandson of the re- 
nowned leader of the Long Parliament, and Henry Booth, Lord 
Delamere. Gerard and Hampden were accused of having taken 
part in the Rye House plot, Delamere of having abetted the Western 
insurrection. 

It was not the intention of the government to put either Gerard or 
Hampden to death. Grey had stipulated for their lives before he 
consented to become a witness against them.+ But there was a still 
stronger reason for sparing them. ‘They were heirs to large property: 
but their fathers were still living. The Court could therefore get 
little in the way of forfeiture, and might get much in the way of 
ransom. Gerard was tried, and, from the very scanty accounts” 
which have come down to us, seems to have defended himself with 
great spirit and force. He boasted of the exertions and sacrifices 
made by his famiiy in the cause of Charles the First, and proved 
Rumsey, the witness who had murdered Russell by telling one story 
and Cornish by telling another, to be utterly undeserving of credit. 
The jury, with some hesitation, found a verdict of Guilty. After 
long imprisonment Gerard was suffered to redeem himself.{ Hamp- 
den had inherited the political opinions and a large share of the 
abilities of his grandfather, but had degenerated from the upright- 
ness ana the courage by which his grandfather had been distin- 
guished. It appears that the prisoner was, with cruel cunning, long 
kept in an agony of suspense, in order that his family might be in- 
duced to pay largely for mercy. His spirit sank under the terrors of 
death. When brought to the bar of the Old Bailey, he not only 
pleaded guilty, but disgraced the illustrious name which he bore by 
abject submissions and entreaties. He protested that he had not 
been privy to the design of assassination; but he owned that he had 
meditated rebellion, professed deep repentance for his offence, im- 
plored the intercession of the Judges, and vowed that, if the royal 
clemency were extended to him his whole life should be passed in- 
evincing his gratitude for such goodness. The Whigs were furious 
at his pusillanimity, and loudly declared him to be far more deservy- 
ing of blame than Grey, who, even in turning King’s evidence, had 
preserved a certain decorum. Hampden’s life was spared; but his 
family paid several thousand pounds to the Chancellor. Some court- 


458 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


* Lords’ Journals; Nov. 11, 17, 18, 1685. 
+ Burnet, i. 646. 
¢ Bramston’s Memoirs; Luttrell’s Diary. 


ae HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 459 


iers of less note succeeded in extorting smaller sums. The unhappy 
man had spirit enough to feel keenly the degradation to which he 
had stooped. He survived the day of his ignominy several years. 
He lived to see his party triumphant, to be once more an important 
member of it, and to make his persecutors tremble in their turn. 
_ But his prosperity was embittered by one insupportable recollection. 
He never regained his cheerfulness, and at length died by his own 
hand.* 
That Delamere, if he had needed the royal mercy, would have 
found it, is not very probable. It is certain that every advantage 
which the letter of the law gave to the government was used against 
him without scruple or shame. He was in a different situation from 
that in which Stamford stood. The indictment against Stamford ha 
been removed into the House of Lords during the session of Parlia- 
ment, and therefore could not be prosecuted till the Parliament showt 
reassemble. All the peers would then have voices, and would be 
_ judges as well of law as of fact. But the bill against Delamere was 
not found till after the prorogation.| He was therefore within the 
jurisdiction of the Court to which belongs, during a recess of Parlia- 
ment, the cognisance of treasons and felonies committed by temporal 
peers; and this Court was then so constituted that no prisoner charged 
- with a political offence could expect an impartial trial. The King 
named a Lord High Steward.. The Lord High Steward named, at 
_his discretion, certain peers to sit on their accused brother. The 
- number to be summoned was indefinite. No challenge was allowed. 
A simple majority, provided that it consisted of twelve, was sufficient — 
to convict. The High Steward was sole judge of the law; and the 
Lords Triers formed merely a jury to- pronounce on the question of 
fact. Jeffreys was appointed High Steward. He selected thirty 
Triers; and the selection was characteristic of the man and of the 
times. All the thirty were in politics vehemently opposed to the 
prisoner. Fifteen of them were colonels of regiments, and might be 
removed from their lucrative commands at the pleasure of the King. 
Among the remaining fifteen were the Lord Treasurer, the principal 
_ Secretary of State, the Steward of the Household, the Comptroller of 
the Household, the Captain of the Band of Gentlemen Pensioners, 
_ the Queen’s Chamberlain, and other persons who were bound by 
strong ties of interest to the government. Nevertheless, Delamere 
had some great advantages over the humbler culprits who had been 
arraigned at the Old Bailey. There the jurymen, violent partisans, 
_ taken fora single day by courtly Sheriffs from the mass of society 
and speedily sent back to mingle with that mass, were under no re- 
straint of shame, and being little accustomed to weigh evidence, fol- 


* 


* See the trial in the Collection of State Trials; Bramston’s Memoirs; Burnet, 
> {. 647; Lords’ Journals, Dec. 20, 1689. 
t Lords’ Journals, Nov. 9, 10, 16, 1685. 


460 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


lowed without scruple the directions of the bench. But in the High 
Steward’s Court every Trier was a man of some experience in grave 
affairs. Every Trier filled a considerable space in the public eye. 
Every Trier, beginning from the lowest, had to rise separately and to 
give in his verdict, on his honour, before a great concourse. That 
verdict, accompanied with his name, would go to every part of the 
world, and would live in history. Moreover, though the selected 
nobles were all Tories, and almost all placemen, many of them had 
begun to look with uneasiness on the King’s proceedings, and to 
doubt whether the case of Delamere might not soon be their own. 
Jeffreys conducted himself, as was his wont, insolently and unjust- 
ly. He had indeed an old grudge to stimulate his zeal. He had been 
Chief Justice of Chester when Delamere, then Mr. Booth, represented 
that county in Parliament. Booth had bitterly complained to the 
Commons that the dearest interests of his constituents were intrusted 
to a drunken jack-pudding.* The revengeful judge was now not 
ashamed to resort to artifices which even in an advocate would have 
been culpable. He reminded the Lords Triers, in very significant lan- 
guage, that Delamere had, in Parliament, objected to the bill for at- 
tainting Monmouth, a fact which was not, and could not be, in evi- 
dence. Butit was not inthe power of Jeffreys to overawe a synod of 
peers as he had been in the habit of overawing common juries. The ev- 
idence for the crown would probably have been thought amply suffi- 
cient on the Western Circuit, or at the City Sessions, but could not 
for a moment impose on such men as Rochester, Godolphin, and 
Churchill; nor were they, with all their faults, depraved enough to con- 
demn a fellow creature to death against the plainest rules of justice. 
Grey, Wade, and Goodenough were produced, but could only repeat 
what they had heard said by Monmouth and by Wildman’s emissaries. 
The principal witness for the prosecution, a miscreant named Saxton, 
who had been concerned in the rebellion, and who was now labour- 
ing to earn his pardon by swearing against all who were obnoxious 
to the government, was proved by overwhelming evidence to have 
told aseries of falsehoods. All the Triers, from Churchill, who, as 
junior baron, spoke first, up to the Treasurer, pronounced, on their 
honour, that Delamere was not guilty. The gravity and pomp of the 
whole proceeding made a deep impression even on the Nuncio, ac- 
customed as he was to the ceremonies of Rome, ceremonies which, in 
solemnity and splendour, exceed all that the rest of the world can 
show.+ The King, who was present, and was unable to complain of 
a decision evidently just, went into a rage with Saxton, and vowed 
that the wretch should first be pilloried before Westminster Hall for 


* Speech on the Corruption of the Judges in Lord Delamere’s works, 1694. 
é, seni ayer pom piena di gravita, di ordine, e di gran speciosita.’’—Adda, 
an, 15-25, : 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 461 


perjury, and then sent down to the West to be hanged, drawn, and 
quartered for treason.* 

The public joy at the acquittal of Delamere was great. The reign 
of terror was over. The innocent began to breathe freely, and false 
accusers to tremble. One letter written on this occasion is scarcely 
to be read without tears. The widow of Russell, in her retirement, 
learned the good news with mingled feelings. ‘‘I do bless God,” she 
wrote, ‘‘that he has caused some stop to be put to the shedding of 
blood in this poor land. Yet when I should rejoice with them that 
do rejoice, | seek a corner to weep ‘in. I find [am capable of no 
more gladness; but every new circumstance, the very comparing my 
night of sorrow, after such a day, with theirs of joy, does, from a re- 
flection of one kind or another, rack my uneasy mind. Though Iam 
far from wishing the close of theirs like mine, yet I cannot refrain 
giving some time to lament mine was not like theirs.”’+ 

And now the tide was on the turn. The death of Stafford, wit- 
nessed with signs of tenderness and remorse by the populace to whose 
rage he was sacrificed, marks the close of one proscription. The ac- 
quittal of Delamere marks the close of another. The crimes which 
had disgraced the stormy tribuneship of Shaftesbury had been fear- 
fully expiated. The blood of innocent Papists had been avenged 
more than tenfold by the blood of zealous Protestants. Another great 
reaction hadcommenced. Factions were fast taking new forms. Old 
allies were separating. Old enemies were uniting. Discontent was 
spreading fast through all the ranks of the party lately dominant. A 
hope, still indeed faint and indefinite, of victory and revenge, ani- 
mated the party which had lately seemed to be extinct. With such 
omens the eventful and troubled year 1685 terminated, and the year 

1686 began. 

_ The prorogation had relieved the King from the gentle remonstran- 
ces of the Houses: but he had still to listen to remonstrances, similar 
in substance, though uttered in a tone even more cautious and sub- 
dued. Some men, who had hitherto served him but too strenuously 
for their own fame and for the public welfare, had begun to feel pain- 
ful misgivings, and occasionally ventured to hint a small part of what 
they felt. 

During many years the zeal of the English Tory for hereditary 
monarchy and his zeal for the established religion had grown up to- | 
gether and had strengthened each other. It had never occurred to 
him that the two sentiments, which seemed inseparable and even 
identical, might one day be found to be not only distinct but incom- 
patible. From the commencement of the strife between the Stuarts 
and the Commons, the cause of the Crown and the cause of the hierar. 


ig Trial is in the collection of State Trials. Van Leeuwen, Jan. 15-25, 19-29, 
+ Lady Russell to Dr. Fitzwilliam, Jan. 1686, 


462 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


chy had, to all appearance, been one. Charles the First was regarded 
by the Church as her own martyr. If Charles the Second had plotted 
against her, he had plotted in secret. In public he had ever professed 
himself her grateful and devoted son, had knelt at her altars, and in 
spite of his loose morals, had succeeded in persuading the great body 
of her adherents that he felt a sincere preference for her. Whatever 
conflicts, therefore, the honest Cavalier might have had to maintain 
against Whigs and Roundheads, he had at least been hitherto undis- 
turbed by conflict in his own mind. He had seen the path of duty 
- plain before him. Through good and evil he was to be true to Church 
and King. But, if those two august and venerable powers, which 
had hitherto seemed to be so closely connected that those who were 
true to one could not be false to the other, should be divided by a 
deadly enmity, what course was the orthodox Royalist to take? 
What situation could be more trying than that of a man distracted 
between two duties equally sacred, between two affections equally 
ardent? How would it be possible to give to Csesar all that was 
Ceesar’s, and yet to withhold from God no part of what vas God’s? 
None who felt thus could have watched, without deep concern and 
gloomy forebodings, the dispute between the King and the Parlia- 
ment on the subject of the test. If James could even now be induced 
to reconsider his course, to let the Houses reassemble, and to comply 
with their wishes, all might yet be well. : 

Such were the sentiments of the King’s two kinsmen, the Earls of 
Clarendon and Rochester. The power and favour of these noblemen 
seemed to be great indeed. The younger brother was Lord 'Treas- 
urer and prime minister; and the elder, after holding the Privy Seal 
during some months, had been appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. 
The venerable Ormond took the same side. . Middleton and Preston, 
who, as managers of the House of Commons, had recently learned by 

roof how dear the established religion was to the loyal gentry of 
‘ngland, were also for moderate counsels. 

At the very beginning of the new year these statesmen and the 
great party which they represented had to suffer a cruel mortifica- 
tion. That the late King had been at heart a Roman Catholic had 
been, during some months, suspected and whispered, but not formally 
announced. The disclosure, indeed, could not be made without 
great scandal. Charles had, times without number, declared himself 
a Protestant, and had been in the habit of receiving the Eucharist 
from the Bishops. ‘Chose Churchmen who had stood by him in his 
difficulties, and who still cherished an affectionate remembrance of 
him, must be filled with’ shame and indignation by learning that his 
whole life had been a lie, that, while he professed to belong to their 
communion, he had really rerarded them as heretics, and that the 
demagogues who had represented him as a concealed Papist had been 
the only people who had formed a correct judgment of his character. 
Even Lewis understood enough of the state of public feeling in Eng 


a 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 463 


and to be aware that the divulging of the truth might do harm, and 
had, of his own accord, promised to keep the conversion of Charles 
strictly secret.* James, while his power was still new, had thought 
that on this point it was advisable to be cautious, and had not ventured 
to inter his brother with the rites of the Church of Rome. For a 
time, therefore, every man was at liberty to believe what he wished. 
The Papists claimed the deceased prince as their proselyte. ‘The 
Whigs execrated him as a hypocrite-and a renegade. The Tories re- 
garded the report of his apostasy as a calumny which Papists and 
Whigs had, for very different reasons, a common interest in circulat- 
ing. James now tooka step which greatly disconcerted the whole 
Anglican party. ‘Two papers, in which were set forth very concisely 
the arguments ordinarily used by Roman Catholics against Protes- 
tants, had been found in Charles’s strong box, and appeared to be in 
his handwriting. These papers James showed triumphantly to sev-. 
eral Protestants, and declared that, to his knowledge, his brother had 
lived and died a Roman Catholic.+ One of the persons to whom the 
manuscripts were exhibited was Archbishop Sancroft. He read them 
with much emotion, and remained silent. Such silence was only the 
natural effect of a struggle between respect and vexation But James 
supposed that the Primate was struck dumb by the irresistible force of 
Yeason, and eagerly challenged His Grace to produce, with the help 
of the whole episcopal bench, a satisfactoryreply. ‘‘ Let me have a 
solid answer, and in a gentlemanlike style; and it may have the effect 
which you so much desire of bringing me over to your Church.” The 
Archbishop mildly said that, in his opinion, such an answer might, 
without much difficulty, be written, but declined the controversy on 
the plea of reverence for the memory of his deceased master. This 
; . the King considered as the subterfuge of a vanquished disputant. t 
Had His Majesty been well acquainted with the polemical literature 
of the preceding century and a half, he would have known that the 
documents to which he attached so much value might have been com- 
posed by any lad of fifteen in the college of Douay, and contained 
nothing which had not, in the opinion of all Protestant divines, been 
ten thousand times refuted. In his ignorant exultation, he ordered 
these tracts to be printed with the utmost pomp of typography, and 
appended to them a declaration attested by his sign manual, and cer: 
tifying that the originals were in his brother’s own hand. James him- 
self distributed the whole edition among his courtiers and among the 
people of humbler rank who crowded round his coach. He gave one 
copy to a young woman of mean condition whom he supposed to be 
of his own religious persuasion, and assured her that she would be 
greatly edified and comforted by the perusal. In requital of his kind- 


* Lewis to Barillon, Feb. 10-20, 1685-6. 
+ Evelyn’s Diary, October 2, 1685. 
t Life of James the Second. ii. 9, Orig. Mem. 


464 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


ness, she delivered to him, a few days later, an epistle adjuring him 
to come out of the mystical Babylon and to dash from his lips the cup 
of fornications.* 

These things gave great uneasiness to Tory churchmen. Nor were 
the most respectable Roman Catholic noblemen much better pleased. 
They might indeed have been excused if passion had, at this conjunct- 
ure, made them deaf to the voice of prudence and justice; for they 
had suffered much. Protestant jealousy had degraded them from 
the rank to which they were born, had closed the doors of the Parlia- 
ment House on the heirs of barons who had signed the Charter, had 
pronounced the command of a company of foot too high a trust for 
the descendants of the generals who had conquered at Flodden and 
Saint Quentin. There was scarcely one eminent peer attached to the 
old faith whose honour, whose estate, whose life had not been in jeop- 
_ardy, who had not passed months in the Tower, who had not often 
anticipated for himself the fate of Stafford. Men who had been so 
long and cruelly oppressed might have been pardoned if they had 
eagerly seized the first opportunity of obtaining at once greatness and 
revenge. But neither fanaticism nor ambition, neither resentment 
for past wrongs nor the intoxication produced by sudden good for 
tune, could prevent the most distinguished Roman Catholics from 
perceiving that the prosperity which they at length enjoyed was only 
temporary, and, unless wisely used, might be fatal tothem. They had 
been taught, by a cruel experience, that the antipathy of the nation 
to their religion was not a fancy which would yield to the mandate. 
of a prince, but a profound sentiment, the growth of five generations, 
diffused through all ranks and parties, and intertwined not less closely 
with the principles of the Tory than with the principles of the Whig. 
It was indeed in the power of the King, by the exercise of his preroga- 
tive of mercy, to suspend the operation of the penal laws. It might 
hereafter be in his power, by discreet management, to obtain from the 
Parliament a repeal of the acts which imposed civil disabilities on 
those who professed his religion. But if he attempted to subdue the 
Protestant feeling of England by rude means, it was easy to see that 
the violent compression of so powerful and elastic a spring would be 
followed by as violent a recoil. The Roman Catholic peers, by pre- 
maturely attempting to force their way into the Privy Council and 
the House of Lords, might lose their mansions and their ample estates, 
and might end their lives as traitors on Tower Hill, or as beggars at 
the porches of Italian convents. 

Such was the feeling of William Herbert, Earl of Powis, who was 
generally regarded as the chief of the Roman Catholic aristocracy, 
and who, according to Oates, was to have been prime minister if the 


* Van Leeuwen, Jan. 1-11, and 12-22, 1686. Her letter, though very long and 
‘hak absurd, was thought worth sending to the States General as a sign of the 
imes. 


ee 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 465 


Popish plot had succeeded. John Lord Bellasyse took the same view 
of the state of affairs. In his youth he had fought gallantly for 
Charles the First, had been rewarded after the restoration with high 
honours and commands, and had quitted them when the Test Act 
was passed. With these distinguished leaders all the noblest and most 
opulent members of their church concurred, except Lord Arundell of 
Wardour, an old man fast sinking into second childhood. 

But there was at the court a smali knot of Roman Catholics whose 
hearts had been ulcerated by old injuries, whose heads had been 
turned by recent elevation, who were impatient to climb to the high- 
est honours of the state, and who, having little to lose, were not 
troubled by thoughts of the day of reckoning. One of these was 
Roger Palmer, Earl of Castelmaine in Ireland, and husband of the 
Duchess of Cleveland. His title had notoriously been purchased by 
his wife’s dishonour and his own. His fortune was small. His tem- 
per, naturally ungentle, had been exasperated by his domestic vex- 
ations, by the public reproaches, and by what he had undergone in 
the days of the Popish plot. He had been long a prisoner, and had 
at length been tried for his life. Happily for him, he was not put to 
the bar till the first burst of popular rage had spent itself, and till the 
credit of the false witnesses had beenblown upon. He had therefore 
escaped, though very narrowly.* With Castelmaine was allied one 
of the most favoured of his wife’s hundred lovers, Henry Jermyn, 
whom James had lately created a peer by the title of Lord Dover. 
Jermyn had been distinguished more than twenty years before by his 
vagrant amours and his desperate duels. He was now ruined by play, 
and was eager to retrieve his fallen fortunes by means of lucrative 
posts from which the laws excluded him.+ To the same party be- 
longed an intriguing pushing Irishman named White, who had been 
much abroad, who had served the House of Austria as something be- 
tween an envoy and a spy, and who had been rewarded by that 
House for his services with the title of Marquess of Albeville.t 
. Soon after the prorogation this reckless faction was strengthened 
by an important reinforcement. Richard Talbot, Earl of Tyrconnel, 
the fiercest and most uncompromising of all those who hated the 
liberties and religion of England, arrived at court from Dublin. 

Talbot was deseended from an old Norman family which had been 
long settled in Leinster, which had there sunk into degeneracy, which 
had adopted the manners of the Celts, which had, like the Celts, ad- 
hered to the old religion, and which had taken part with the Celts in 
the rebellion of 1641. In his youth he had been one of the most 
noted sharpers and bullies of London. He had been introduced ta 


nee Sat 


*See his tria. in the Collection of State Trials, and his curious manifesto 
printed in 1681. 

+ Memoires de Grammont; Pepys’s Diary, Aug. 19, 1662: Bonrepaux to Seigne- 
lay, Feb. 1-11, 1686. 

Reandenank to Seignelay, Feb. 1-11, 1686. 


466 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


Charles and James when they were exiles in Flanders, as a man fit 
and ready for the infamous service of assassinating the Protector. 
Soon after the Restoration, Talbot attempted to obtain the favour of 
the royal family by a service more infamous still. A plea was 
wanted which might justify the Duke of York in breaking that 
promise of marriage by which he had obtained from Anne Hyde the 
last proof of female affection. Such a plea Talbot, in concert with ~ 
some of his dissolute companions, undertook to furnish. They 
agreed to describe the poor young lady as a creature without virtue, 
shame, or delicacy, and made up long romances about tender inter- 
views and stolen favours. Talbot in particular related how, in one 
of his secret visits to her, he had unluckily overturned the Chancel- 
lor’s inkstand upon a pile of papers, and how cleverly she had averted 
a discovery by laying the blame of the accident on her monkey. 
These stories, which, if they had been true, would never have passed 
the lips of any but the basest of mankind, were poor inventions. | 
Talbot was soon forced to own that they were so; and he owned it 
without a blush. The injured lady became Duchess of York. Had 
her husband been a man really upright and honourable, he would 
have driven from his presence with indignation and contempt the 
wretches who had slandered her. But one of the peculiarities of 
James’s character was that no act, however wicked and shameful, 
which had been prompted by a desire to gain his favour, ever seemed 
to him deserving of disapprobation. Talbot continued to frequent 
the court, appeared daily with brazen front before the princess whose ~ 
ruin he had plotted, and was installed into the lucrative post of chief 
pandar to her husband. In no long time Whitehall was thrown into 
confusion by the news that Dick Talbot, as he was commonly called, - 
had laid a plan to murder the Duke of Ormond. The bravo was sent 
to the Tower: but in a few days he was again swaggering about the 
galleries, and carrying billets backward and forward between his 
patron and the ughest maids of honour. It was in vain that oldand 
discreet councillors implored the royal brothers not to countenance 
this bad man, who had nothing to recommend him except his fine 
person and his taste in dress. Talbot was not only welcome at 
the palace when the bottle or the dicebox was going round, but 
was heard with attention on matters of business. -He affected the 
character of an Irish patriot, and pleaded, with great audacity, and 
sometimes with success, the cause of his countrymen whose estates 
had been confiscated. He took care, however, to be well paid for his 
services, and succeeded in acquiring, partly by the sale of his influ- 
ence, partly by gambling, and partly by pimping, an estate of three 
thousand pounds a year. For under an outward show of levity, pro- — 
fusion, improvidence, and eccentric impudence, he was in truth one 
of the most mercenary and crafty of mankind. He was now no 
longer young, and was expiating by severe sufferings the dissoluteness — 
of his youth: but age and disease had made no essential change in 


ed > 
: i > 
: i 
: tare 


> 
Sean % 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 467 


his character and manners. He still, whenever he opened his mouth, 
ranted, cursed, and swore with such frantic violence that superficial. 
observers set him down for the wildest of libertines. The multitude 
was unable to conceive that a man who, even when sober, was more 
furious and boastful than others when they were drunk, and who 
seemed utterly incapable of disguising any emotion or keeping any 
secret, could really be a coldhearted, farsighted, scheming sycophant. 
Yet such a man was Talbot. In truth his hypocrisy was of a far 
higher and rarer sort than the hypocrisy which had flourished in 
Barebone’s Parliament. For the consummate hypocrite is not he 
who conceals vice behind the semblance of virtue, but he who makes 
the vice which he has no objection to show a stalking horse to cover 
darker and more profitable vice which it is for his interest to hide. 

Talbot, raised by James to the earldom of Tyrconnel, had com- 
manded the troops in Ireland during the nine months which elapsed 
between the termination of the viceroyalty of Ormond and the com- 
mencement of the viceroyalty of Clarendon. Whe2a the new Lord 
Lieutenant was about to leave London for Dublin, the General was 
summoned from Dublin to London. Dick Talbot had long been well 
known on the road which he had now to travel. Betwen Chester 
and the capital there was not an inn where he had not been ina 
brawl, He was now more insolent and turbulent than ever. He 
pressed horses in defiance of law, swore at the cooks and postilions, 
and almost raised mobs by his insolent rodomontades. The Refors 
mation, he told the people, had ruined everything. But fine times 
were coming. The Catholics would soon be uppermost. The here- 
tics should pay for all. Raving and blaspheming incessantly, like a 
demoniac, he came to the court.* As soon as he was there, he allied 

himself closely with Castelmaine, Dover, and Albeville. These men 
called with one voice for war on the constitution of the Church and the 
State. They told their master that he owed it to his religion and to 
the dignity of his crown to stand firm against the outcry of heretical 
demagogues, and exhorted him to Jet the Parliament see from the first 
that he would be master in spite of opposition, and that the only ef- 
fect of opposition would be to make him a hard master. 

Hach of the two parties into which the Court was divided had zealous 
foreignallies. The ministersof Spain, of the Empire, and of the States 
General were now as anxious to support Rochester as they had for- 
merly been to support Halifax. All the influencc of Barillon was em- 
ployed on the other side; and Barillon was assisted by another French 
agent, inferior to him in station, but superior in abilities, Bonrepaux. 
Barillon was not without parts, and possessed in large measure the 


*Memoires de Grammont; Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon; Correspond- 
ence of Henry, Earl of Clarendon, passim, particularly the letter dated Dec. 29, 
: edt Sheridan MS. among the Stuart Papers; Ellis Correspondence, Jan. 12, 


468 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


graces and accomplishments which then distinguished the French gen. 
try. But his capacity was scarcely equal to what his great place 
required. He had become sluggish and self-indulgent, liked the plea- 
sures of society and of the table better than business, and on great emer- 
gencies generally waited for admonitions and even for reprimands from 
Versailles before he showed much activity.* Bonrepaux had raised 
himself from obscurity by the intelligence and industry which. he 
had exhibited as a clerk in the department of the marine, and was 
esteemed an adept in the art of mercantile politics. At the close of 
the year 1685, he was sent to London charged with several special 
commissions of high importance. He was to lay the ground fora 
treaty of commerce; he was to ascertain and report the state of the 
English fleets and dockyards; and he was to make some overtures to 
the Huguenot refugees, who, it was supposed, had been so effectu- 
ally tamed by penury and exile, that they would thankfully accept 
almost any terms of reconciliation. The new Envoy’s origin was 
plebeian: his stature was dwarfish: his countenance was ludicrously 


ugly; and his accent was that of his native Gascony: but his strong 


sense, his keen penetration, and his lively wit eminently qualified 
him for his post. In spite of every disadvantage of birth and figure, 
he was soon known as a pleasing companion and as a skilful diplo- 
matist. He contrived, while flirting with the Duchess of Mazarin, 
discussing literary questions with Waller and Saint Evremond, and 
corresponding with La Fontaine, to acquire a considerable knowl- 
edge of English politics. His skill in maritime affairs recommended 
him to James, who had, during many years, paid close attention to 
the business of the Admiralty, and understood that business as well 
as he was capable of understanding anything. They conversed every 
day long and freely about the state of the shipping and the dock- 
yards. The result of this intimacy was, as might have been expected, 
that the keen and vigilant Frenchman conceived a great contempt for 
the King’s abilities and character. The world, he said, had much 
overrated his Britannic Majesty, who had less capacity than Charles, 
and not more virtue.+ 

The two Envoys of Lewis, though pursuing one object, very judi- 
ciously took different paths. They made a partition of the court. 
Bonrepaux lived chiefly with Rochester and Rochester’s adherents. 
Barillon’s connections were chiefly with the opposite faction. The 
consequence was that they sometimes saw the same event in different 


points of view. The best account now extant of the contest which 


at this time agitated Whitehall is to be found in their despatches. 


* See his later correspondence, passim; Saint Evremond, passim; and Mad- 
ame de Sévigné’s Letters in the beginning of 1689. See also the instructions to 
Tallard after the peace of Ryswick, in the French archives. 


+Saint Simon Mémoires, 1697, 1719; Saint Evremond; La Fontaine; Bonre- 


paux to Seignelay 7" Feb. 8-18, 1686, 
ih 


a . pak 
nae r 
ij jvm, § : 
ty jl } =~ 
Fr 

+ 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 469 


As each of these two parties at the court of James had the support 

of the foreign princes, so each had also the support of an ecclesias- 

tical authority to which the King paid great deference. The Su 
preme Pontiff was for legal and moderate courses; and his senti- 
ments were expressed by the Nuncio and by the Vicar Apostolic.* 
On the other side was a body of which the weight balanced even 
the weight of the Papacy, the mighty Order of Jesus. 

That at this conjuncture these two great spiritual powers, once, as 
it seemed, inseparably allied, should have been opposed to each 
other, is a most important and remarkable circumstance. Dutfing a 
period of little less than a thousand years the regular clergy had 
been the chief support of the Holy See. By that See they had been 
protected from episcopal interference; and the protection which 
they had received had been amply repaid. But for their exertions it 
is probable that the Bishop of Rome would have been merely the 
honorary president of a vast aristocracy of prelates. It was by the aid 
of the Benedictines that Gregory the Seventh was enabled to contend 
at once against the Franconian Ceesars and against the secular priest- 
hood. It was by the aid of the Dominicans and Franciscans that Inno- 
cent the Third crushed the Albigensian sectaries. Three centuries 
later the Pontificate, exposed to new dangers more formidable than had 
ever before threatened it, was saved by a new religious order, which 
was animated by intense enthusiasm and organized with exquisite 
skill. When the Jesuits came to the rescue, they found the Papacy in 
extreme peril: but from that moment the tide of battle turned. Prot- 
estantism, which had, during a whole generation, carried all before it, 
was stopped in its progress, and rapidly beaten back from the foot of 
the Alps to the shores of the Baltic. Before the Order had existed 
a hundred years, it had filled the whole world with memorials of great 
things done and suffered for the faith. No religious community 
could produce a list of men so variously distinguished: none had ex- 
tended its operations over so vast a space: yet in none had there ever 
been such perfect unity of feeling and action. There was no region 
of the globe, no walk of speculative or of active life, in which Jesu- 
its were not to be found. They guided the counsels of Kings. They 
deciphered Latin inscriptions. They observed the motions of Jupiter’s 
satellites. They published whole libraries, controversy, casuistry, 
history, treatises on optics, Alcaic odes, editions of the fathers, mad- 
rigals, catechisms and lampoons. The liberal education of youth 
passed almost entirely into their hands, and was conducted by them 
With conspicuous ability. They appear to have discovered the pre- 


*® Adda, Nov. 16-26, Dec. 7-17, and Dec. 21-81, 1685. In these despatches Adda 
gives strong reasons for compromising matters by abolishing the penal laws 
and leaving the test. He calls the quarrel with the Parliament a ‘‘gran disgra- 
zia.” He repeatedly hints that the King might, by a constitutional policy, have 
obtained much for the Roman Catholics, and that the attempt to relieve them 
illegally is likely to bring great calamities on them. 


470 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


cise point to which intellectual culture can be carried without risk 
of intellectual emancipation. Enmity itself was. compelled to own 
that, in the art of managing and forming the tender mind, they had 
no equals. Meanwhile they assiduously and successfully cultivated 
the eloquence of the pulpit. With still greater assiduity and still 
greater success they applied themselves to the ministry of the confes- 
sional. ‘Throughout Roman Catholic Europe the secrets of every 
government and of almost every family of note were in their keep- 
ing. They glided from one Protestant country to another under in- 
numerable disguises, as gay Cavaliers, as simple rustics, as Puritan 
preachers. They wandered to countries which neither mercantile 
avidity nor liberal curiosity had ever impelled any stranger to ex- 


plore. They were to be found in the garb of Mandarins, superin- | 


tending the observatory at Pekin. They were to be found, spade in 
hand, teaching the rudiments of agriculture to the savages of Para- 
guay. Yet, whatever might be their residence, whatever might be 
their employment, their spirit was the seme, entire devotion to the 
common cause, unreasoning obedience to the central authority. 
None of them had chosen his dwelling place or his vocation for him- 
self. Whether the Jesuit should live under the arctic circle or 
under the equator, whether he should pass his life arranging gems 
and collating manuscripts at the Vatican or in persuading naked 
barbarians under the Southern Cross not to eat each other, were mat- 
ters which he left with profound submission to the decision of others. 
If he was wanted at Lima, he was on the Atlantic in the next fleet. 
If he was wanted at Bagdad, he was toiling through the desert 
with the next caravan. If his ministry was needed in some coun- 
try where his life was more insecure than that of a wolf, where it 
was acrime to harbour him, where the heads and quarters of his 
brethren, fixed in the public places, showed him what he had to ex- 
pect, he went without remonstrance or hesitation to his doom. Nor 
is this heroic spirit yet extinct. When, in our time, a new and terri- 
ble pestilence passed round the globe, when, in some great cities, 
fear had dissolved all the ties which hold society together, when the 
secular clergy had forsaken their flocks, when medical succour was 
not to be purchased ly gold, when the strongest natural affections 
had yielded to the love of life, even then the Jesuit was found by 
the pallet which bishop and curate, physician and nurse, father and 
mother, had deserted, bending over infected lips to catch the faint 
accents of confession, and holding up to the last, before the expiring 
penitent, the image of the expiring Redeemer. 

But with the admirable energy, disinterestedness, and selfdevo- 
tion which were characteristic of the Society, great vices were min- 


gled. It was alleged, and not without foundation, that the ardent — 


public spirit which made the Jesuit regardless of his ease, of his lib- 
erty, and of his life, made him also regardless of truth and of mercy; 
that no means which could promote the interest of his religion seemed 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 471 


to him unlawful, and that by the interest of his religion he too often 


meant the interest of his Society. It was alleged that, in the most 
atrocious plots recorded in history, his agency could be distinctly 
traced; that, constant only in attachment to the fraternity to which 
he belonged, he was in some countries the most dangerous enemy of 
freedom, and in others the most dangerous enemy of order. The 
mighty victories which he boasted he had achieved in the cause of 
the Church were, in the judgment of many illustrious members of 
that Church, rather apparent than real. He had indeed laboured 
with a wonderful show of success to reduce the world under her 
laws; but he had done so by relaxing her laws to suit the temper of 
the world. Instead of toiling to elevate human nature to the noble 
standard fixed by divine precept and example, he had lowered the 
standard till it was beneath the average level of human nature. He 
gloried in multitudes of converts who had been baptised in the re- 
mote regions of the East; but it was reported that from some of those 
converts the facts on which the whole theology of the Gospel depends 
had been cunningly concealed, and that others were permitted to avoid 

ersecution by bowing down before the images of false gods, while 
internally repeating Paters and Aves. Nor was it only in heathen coun- 
tries that such arts were said to be practised. It was not strange that 
people of all ranks, and especially of the highest ranks, crowded to 
the confessionals in the Jesuit temples; for from those confessionals 
none went discontented away. ‘There the priest was all things to all 


men. He showed just so much rigour as might not drive those who 


knelt at his spiritual tribunal to the Dominican or the Franciscan 
church. If he had to deal with a mind truly devout, he spoke in the 
saintly tones of the primitive fathers; but with that large part of man- 


_kind who have religion enough to make them uneasy when they do 


wrong, and not religion enough to keep them from doing wrong, he 
followed a different system. Since he could not reclaim them from 
vice, it was his business to save them from remorse. He had at his 
command an immense dispensary of anodynes for wounded con-. 
sciences. In the books of casuistry which had been written by his 
brethren, and printed with the approbation of his superiors, were to 
be found doctrines consolatory to transgressors of every class. 
There the bankrupt was taught how he might, without sin, secrete 
his goods from his creditors. The servant was taught how he might, 
Without sin, run off with his master’s plate. The pandar was as- 
sured that a Christian man might innocently earn his living by car- 


‘Tying letters and messages between married women and their gallants, 


he high spirited and punctilious gentlemen of France were grati 
fied by a decision in favour of duelling. The Italians, accustomed to 
darker and baser modes of vengeance, were glad to learn that they 
might, without any crime, shoot at their enemies from behind hedges. 
To deceit was given a license sufficient to destroy the whole value of 


human contracts and of human testimony. In truth, if society con- 


™ és ii 


472 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


tinued to hold together, if life and property enjoyed any security, it 
was because common sense and common humanity restrained men 
from doing what the Order of Jesus assured them that they might 
with a safe conscience do. 

So strangely were good and evil intermixed in the character of 
these celebrated brethren; and the intermixture was the secret of 
their gigantic power. ‘That power could never have belonged to 
mere hypocrites. It could never have belonged to rigid moralists. 
It was to be attained only by men sincerely enthusiastic in the 
pursuit of a great end, and at the same time unscrupulous as to the 
choice of means. 

Irom the first the Jesuits had been bound by a peculiar allegiance 
to the Pope. Their mission had been not less to quell all mutiny 
within the Church than to repel the hostility to her avowed ene- 
mies. Their doctrine was in the highest degree what has been 
called on our side of the Alps Ultramontane, and differed almost as 
much from the doctrine of Bossuet as from that of Luther. They 
condemned the Gallican liberties, the claim of cecumenical councils 
to control the Holy See, and the claim of Bishops to an independent 
commission from heaven. Lainez, in the name of the whole fra-— 
ternity, proclaimed at Trent, amidst the applause of the creatures of 
Pius the Fourth, and the murmurs of French and Spanish prelates, 
that the government of the faithful had been committed by Christ 
to the Pope alone, that in the Pope alone all sacerdotal authority was 
concentrated, and that through the Pope alone priests and bishops de- 
rived whatever power they possessed.* During many years the union 
between the Supreme Pontiffs and the Order had continued unbroken. 
Had that union been still unbroken when James the Second ascended 
the English throne, had the influence of the Jesuits as well as the in- 
fluence of the Pope been exerted in favour of a moderate and consti- 
tutional policy, it is probabie that the great revolution which ina | 
short time changed the whole state of European affairs would never | 
have taken place. Buteven, before the middle of the seventeenth cen- 
tury, the Society, proud of its services and confident in its strength, 
had become impatient of the yoke. A generation of Jesuits sprang 
up, who looked for protection and guidance rather to the court of 
France than to the court of Rome; and this disposition was not a lit- 
tle strengthened when Innocent the Eleventh was raised to the papal 
throne. 

The Jesuits were, at that time, engaged in a war to the death against 
an enemy whom they had at first disdained, but whom they had at 
length been forced to regard with respect and fear. Just when their 
prosperity was at the height, they were braved by a handful of op- 
ponents, who had indeed no influence with the rulers of this world, — 
but who were strong in religious faith and intellectual energy. Then 


— 


3 — —— 


* Fra Paolo, lib. vii,; Pallavicino, lib, xviii. cap. 15. 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 473 


followed a long, a strange, a glorious conflict of genius against power. 
The Jesuit called cabinets, tribunals, universities to his aid; and 
they responded to the call. Port Royal appealed, not in vain, to the 
hearts and to the understandings of millions. The dictators of 
Christendom found themselves, on a sudden, in the position of cul- 
prits. They were arraigned on the charge of having systematically 
debased the standard of evangelical morality, for the purpose of in- 
creasing their own influence; and the charge was enforced in a 
manner which at once arrested the attention of the whole world; for 
the chief accuser was Blaise Pascal. His powers of mind were 
such as have rarely been bestowed on any of the children of men; 
and the vehemence of the zeal which animated him was but too 
well proved by the cruel penances and vigils under which his ma- 
cerated frame sank into an early grave. His spirit was the spirit 
of Saint Bernard: but the delicacy of his wit, the purity, the energy, 
the simplicity of his rhetoric, had never been equalled, except by 
the great masters of Attic eloquence. All Europe read and admired, 
laughed and wept. The Jesuits attempted to reply: but their feeble 
answers were received by the public with shouts of mockery. They 
wanted, it is true, no talent or accomplishment into which men can be 
drilled by elaborate discipline; but such discipline, though it may bring 
out the powers of ordinary minds, has a tendency to suffocate, rather 
than to develope, original genius. It was universally acknowledged 
that, in the literary contest, the Jansenists were completely victorious, 
To the Jesuits nothing was left but to oppress the sect which they 
could not confute. Lewis the Fourteenth was now their chief sup- . 
port. His conscience had, from boyhood, been in their keeping; 
and he had learned from them to abhor Jansenism quite as much as 
he abhorred Protestantism, and very much more than he abhorred 
Atheism. Innocent the Eleventh, on the other hand, leaned to the 
Jansenist opinions. The consequence was that the Society found 
itself in a situation never contemplated by its founder. The Jesuits 
were estranged from the Supreme Pontiff; and they were closely 
allied with a prince who proclaimed himself the champion of the 
Gallican liberties and the enemy of Ultramontane pretensions. The 
Order therefore became in England an instrument of the designs of 
Lewis, and laboured, with a success which the Roman Catholics 
afterwards long and bitterly deplored, to widen the breach between 
the King and the Parliament, to thwart the Nuncio, to undermine 
the power of the Lord Treasurer, and to support the most desperate 
schemes of Tyrconnel. 

Thus on one side were the Hydes and the whole body of Tory 
churchmen, Powis and all the most respectable noblemen and gen- 
‘tlemen of the King’s own faith, the States General, the House 
of Austria, and the Pope. On the other side were a few Roman 
Catholic adventurers, of broken fortune and tainted reputation, 
backed by France and by the Jesuits. 


474 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. ‘ 


The chief representative of the Jesuits at Whitehall was an Eng- 
lish brother of the Order, who had, during some time, acted as 
Viceprovincial, who had been long regarded by James with peculiar 
favour, and who had lately been made Clerk of the Closet. This 
man, named Edward Petre, was descended from an honourable 
family: his manners were courtly: his speech was flowing and plau- 
sible: but he was weak and vain, covetous and ambitious. Of all 
the evil counsellors who had access to the royal ear, he bore, per- 
haps, the largest part in the ruin of the House of Stuart. 

The obstinate and imperious nature of the King gave great advan-. 
tages to those who advised him to be firm, to yield nothing, and 
to make himself feared. One state maxim had taken possession of 
his small understanding, and was not to be dislodged om. reason. 
To reason, indeed, he was not in the habit of attending. is mode 
of arguing, if it is to be socalled, was one not uncommon among 
dull and stubborn persons, who are accustomed to be surrounded by 
their inferiors. He asserted a proposition; and, as often as wiser 
people ventured respectfully to show that it was erroneous, he as- 
serted it again, in exactly the same words, and conceived that, by 
doing so, he at once disposed of all objections.* ‘‘I will make “no 
concession,” he often repeated; ‘‘My father made concessions, and 
he was beheaded.”+ Even if it had been true that concession 
had been fatal to Charles the First, a man of sense would have re- 
membered that a single experiment is not sufficient to establish a 
general rule even in sciences much Jess complicated than the science 
of government; that, since the beginning of the world, no two 
political experiments were ever made of which all the conditions 
were exactly alike; and that the only way to learn civil prudence 
from history isto examine and compare an immense number of 
cases. But, if the single instance on which the King relied proved 
anything, it proved that he was in the wrong. ‘There can be little 
doubt that, if Charles had frankly made to the Short Parliament 
which met in the spring of 1640, but one half of the concessions 
which he made, a few months later, to the Long Parliament, he 
would have lived and died a powerful King. On the other hand, 
there can be no doubt whatever that, if he had refused to make any 
concession to the Long Parliament, and had resorted to arms in de- 
fence of the Shipmoney and of the Star Chamber, he would have 
seen, in the hostile ranks, Hyde and Falkland side by side with Hollis 


* This was the practice of his daughter Anne; and Marlborough said that 
she had learned it from her father. See the Vindication of the Duchess oi 
Marlborough. 2 ; ; 

+ Down to the time of the trial of the Bishops, James went on telling Adda 
that all the calamities of Charles the First were “per la troppa indulgenza 


June 29, 


Despatch of ere 1688. 


' 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 475 


and Hampden. It would indeed be more correct to say that, 
if he had refused to make any concession, he would not have been 
able to resort to arms; for not twenty Cavaliers would have joined 
his standard. It was to his large concessions alone that he owed the 
support of that great body of noblemen and gentlemen who fought so 
long and so gallantly in his cause. But it would have been useless 
to represent these thing to James. 

Another fatal delusion had taken possession of his mind, and was 
never dispelled till it had ruine@ him. He firmly believed that, do 


- what he might, the members of the Church of England would act 


up to their principles. It had, he knew, been proclaimed from ten 
thousand pulpits, it had been solemnly declared by the University of 


' Oxford, that even tyranny as frightful as that of the most depraved 


of the Cesars did not justify subjects in resisting the royal authority; 
and hence he was weak enough to conclude that the whole body of 
Tory gentlemen and clergymen would let him plunder, oppress, and 


insult them, without lifting an arm against him. It seems strange 


that any man should have passed his fiftieth year without discover- 
ing that people sometimes do what they think wrong: and James 
had only to look into his own heart for abundant proof that even a 
strong sense of religious duty will not always prevent frail human 
beings from indulging their passions in defiance of divine laws, and 


at the risk of awful penalties. He must have been consciou- that, 


though he thought adultery sinful, he was an adulterer: but noth- 
ing could convince him that any man who professed to think rebel- 
lion sinful would ever, in any extremity, be arebel. The Church of 
England was, in his view, a passive victim, which he might, with- 
out danger, outrage and torture at his pleasure; nor did he ever 
see his error till the Universities were preparing to coin their 
plate for the purpose of supplying the military chest of his 
enemies, and till a Bishop, long renowned for loyalty, had thrown 
aside the cassock, put on jackboots, and taken the command ofa 
regiment of insurgents. 

n these fatal follies the King was artfully encouraged by a minis- 
ter who had been an Exclusionist, and who still called himself a 
Protestant, the Earl of Sunderland. The motives and conduct of 
this unprincipled politician have often been misrepresented. He 
was, in his own lifetime, accused by the Jacobites of having, even 
before the beginning of the reign of James, determined to bring 
about a revolution in favour of the Prince of Orange, and of having, 
with that view, recommended a succession of outrages on the civil 
and ecclesiastical constitution of the realm. This idle story has been 
repeated down to our own days by ignorant writers. But no well 
informed historian, whatever might be his prejudices, has conde- 
scended to adopt it: for it rests on no evidence whatever; and scarce- 
4 any evidence would convince reasonable men that Sunderland 

eliberately incurred guilt and infamy in order to bring about a 


476 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


change by which it was clear that he could not possibly be a gainer, 
and by which, in fact, he lost immense wealth and influence. Nor 
is there the smallest reason for resorting to so strange a hypothesis, 
For the truth lies on the surface. Crooked as this man’s course was, 
the law which determined it was simple. His conduct is to be 
ascribed to the alternate influence of cupidity and fear on a mind 
highly susceptible of both those passions, and quicksighted rather 
than farsighted. He wanted more power and more money. More 
power he could obtain only at Rochester’s expense; and the obvious 
way to obtain power at Rochester’s expense was to encourage the 
dislike which the King felt for Rochester’s moderate counsels. Money 
could be most easily and most largely obtained from the court of 
Versailles; and Sunderland was eager to sell himself to that court. 
He had no jovial generous vices. He cared little for wine or for 
beauty: but he desired riches with an ungovernable and insatiable 
desire. The passion for play raged in him without measure, and had 
not been tamed by ruinous losses. His hereditary fortune was ample. 
He had long filled lucrative posts, and had neglected no art which 
could make them more lucrative; but his ill luck at the hazard table 
was such that his estates were daily becoming more and more en- 
cumbered. In the hope of extricating himself from his embarrass- 
ments, he betrayed to Barillon all the schemes adverse to France 
which had been meditated in the English cabinet, and hinted that a 
Secretary of State could in such times render services for which it 
might be wise in Lewis to pay largely. The Ambassador told his 
master that six thousand guineas was the smallest gratification that 
could be offered to so important a minister. Lewis consented to go 
as high as twenty-five thousand crowns, equivalent to about five 
thousand six hundred pounds sterling. It was agreed that Sunder- 
land should receive this sum yearly, and that he should, in return, 
exert all his influence to prevent the reassembling of the Parlia. 
ment. 

He joined himself therefore to the Jesuitical cabal, and made so 
dexterous an use of the influence of that cabal that he was appointed 
to succeed Halifax in the high dignity of Lord President without ~ 
being required to resign the far more active and lucrative post of 
Secretary.t He felt, however, that he could never hope to obtain 
paramount influence in the Court while he was supposed to belong 
to the Established Church. All religions were the same to him. 


* Barillon, Nov. 16-26, 1685; Lewis to Barillon, pias - In a highly curious 
paper which was written in 1687, almost certainly by Bonrepaux, and which is — 
now in the French archives, Sunderland is described thus :—‘‘ La passion qu'il 
a pour le jeu, et les pertes considerables qu’il y fait, incommodent fort ses 
affaires. I] n’aime pas le vin ; et il hait les femmes.”’ 

t+ appears from the Council Book that he took his place as President on the 
4th of December, 1685. ° 


a. he, 
t - 
4 ¥ ‘ 
” 
, n 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 477 


In private circles, indeed, he was in the habit of talking with profane 
contempt of the most sacred things. He therefore determined to let 


the King have the delight and glory of effecting a conversion. 


Some management, however, was necessary. . No man is utterly 
without regard for the opinion of his fellow creatures; and even 
Sunderland, though not very sensible to shame, flinched from the 
infamy of public apostasy. He played his part with rare adroitness. 
To the world he showed himself: as a Protestant. In the Royal 
Closet he assumed the character of an earnest enquirer after truth, 
who was almost persuaded to declare himself a Roman Catholic, and 
who, while waiting for further illumination, was disposed to render 
every service in his power to the professors of the old faith. James, 
who was never very discerning, and who in religious matters was ab- 
solutely blind, suffered himself, notwithstanding all that he had 
seen of human knavery, of the knavery of courtiers as a class, and 
of the knavery of Sunderland in particular, to be duped into the be- 


lief that divine grace had touched the most false and callous of 


human hearts. During many months the wily minister continued to 
be regarded at court as a promising catechumen, without exhibiting 
himself to the public in the character of a renegade.* 

He early suggested to the King the expediency of appointing a se- 
cret committee of Roman Catholics to advise on all matters affecting the 
interests of theirreligion. This committee met sometimes at Chiffinch’s 
lodgings, and sometimes at the official apartments of Sunderland, 
who, though still nominally a Protestant, was admitted to all its 
deliberations, and soon obtained a decided ascendency over the other 
members. Every Friday the Jesuitical cabal dined with the Secre- 


_tary. The conversation at tibie was free; and the weaknesses of the 


prince whom the confederates hoped to manage were not spared. 
To Petre Sunderland promised a Cardinal’s hat; to Castelmaine a 
splendid embassy to Rome; to Dovera lucrative command in the 
Guards; and to Tyrconnell high employment in Ireland. Thus - 
bound together by the strongest ties of interest, these men addressed 
themselves to the task of subverting the Treasurer’s power. + 

There were two Protestant members of the cabinet who took no 
decided part in the struggle. Jeffreys was at this time tortured by 
a cruelinternal malady which had been aggravated by intemperance. 


At a dinner which a wealthy Alderman gave to some of the leading 


members of the government, the Lord Treasurer and the Lord Chan- 


* Bonrepaux was not so easily deceived as James. ‘En son particulier il 
(Sunderland) n’en professe aucune (religion), et en parle fort librement. Ces 
sortes de discours seroient en exécration en France. Ici ils sont ordinaires 

May 25, 


parmi un certain nombre de gens du pais.’”—Bonrepaux to Seignelay, Jano 4 
7 


1687. 
+ Life of James the Second, ii, 74, 77, Orig. Mem.; Sheridan MS. ; Barillon, 
March 19-29, 1686. 


M. F. i.—i6 


Past 


478 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


cellor were so drunk that they stripped themselves almost stark naked, 
and were with difficulty prevented from climbing up a sign-post to 
drink His Majesty’s health. The pious Treasurer escaped with noth- 


ing but the scandal of the debauch: but the Chancellor brought on 


a violent fit of hiscomplaint. His life was for some time thought to 
be in serious danger. James expressed great uneasiness at the 
thought of losing a minister who suited him so well, and said, with 
some truth, that the loss of such a man could not be easily repaired. 
Jeffreys, when he became convalescent, promised his support to 
both the contending parties, and waited to see which of them would 


prove victorious. Some curious proofs of his duplicity are still ex-— 


tant. It has been already said that the two French agents who were 
then resident in London had divided the English court between them. 
Bonrepaux was constantly with Rochester; and Barillon lived with 
Sunderland. Lewis was informed in the same week by Bonrepaux 
that the Chancellor was entirely with the Treasurer, and by Barillon 
that the Chancellor was in league with the Secretary.* 

Godolphin, cautious and taciturn, did his best to preserve neutral- 
ity. His opinions and wishes were undoubtedly with Rochester; but 
his office made it necessary for him to be in constant attendance on 
the Queen; and he was naturally unwilling to be on bad terms with 
her. There is indeed some reason to believe that he regarded her 
with an attachment more romantic than often finds place in the 
hearts of veteran statesmen; and circumstances which it is now ne- 
cessary to relate, had thrown her into the hands of the Jesuitical 
cabal.+ 

The King, stern as was his temper and grave as was his deport- 
ment, was scarcely less under the influence of female attractions than 
his more lively and amiable brother had been. ‘The beauty, indeed, 
which distinguished the favourite ladies of Charles was not necessary 
to James. Barbara Palmer, Eleanor Gwynn, and Louisa de Quer- 


ouaille were among the finest women of their time. James, when ™ 
oung, had surrendered his liberty, descended below his rank, and 


incurred the displeasure of his family, for the coarse features of 
Anne Hyde. He had soon, to the great diversion of the whole court, 
been drawn away from his plain consort by a plainer mistress, Ara- 
bella Churchill. His second wife, though twenty years younger than 
himself, and of no unpleasing face or figure, had frequent reason to 
complain of his inconstancy. But of all his illicit attachments the 
strongest was that which bound him to Catharine Sedley. 


* Reresby’s Memoirs ; Luttrell’s Diary, Feb, 2, 1685-6; Barillon, Feb. 4-14, 


Jan. 28, , B Jan 25, 
Vist et Keb. A, 
+ Dartmouth’s note on Burnet, i. 621. In a contemporary satire itis remarked 
that Godolphin 
‘* Beats time with politic head, and all approves, 
Pleased with the charge of the Queen’s muff and gloves.” 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. ; 479 


This woman was the daughter of Sir Charles Sedley, one of the 
most brilliant and profligate wits of the Restoration. The licentious- 
ness of his writings is not redeemed by much grace or vivacity; but 
the charms of his conversation were acknowledged even by sober 
men who had no esteem for his character. To sit near him at the 
theatre, and to hear his criticisms on a new play, was regarded as an 
intellectual treat.* Dryden had done him the honour to make him a 
principal interlocutor in the Dialogue on Dramatic Poesy. The 
morals of Sedley were such as, even in that age, gave great scandal. 
He on one occasion, after a wild revel, exhibited himself without a 
shred of clothing in the balcony of a tavern near Covent Garden, 
and harangued the people who were passing in language so indecent 
and profane that he was driven in by a shower of brickbats, was 
prosecuted for a misdemeanour, was sentenced to a heavy fine, and 
was reprimanded by the Court of King’s Bench in the most cutting 
terms.+ His daughter had inherited his abilities and his impudence. 
Personal charms she had none, with the exception of two brilliant 
eyes, the lustre of which, to men of delicate taste, seemed fierce and 
unfeminine. Her form was lean, her countenance haggard. Charles, 
though he liked her conversation, laughed at her ugliness, and said 
that the priests must have recommended her to his brother by way of 
penance. She well knew that she was not handsome, and jested 
freely on her own homeliness. Yet, with strange inconsistency she 
loved to adorn herself magnificently, and drew on herself much keen 
ridicule by appearing in the theatre and the ring plastered, painted, 
clad in Brussels lace, glittering with diamonds, and affecting all the 
graces of eighteen.t 
_ The nature of her influence over James is not easily to be explained. 
He was no longer young. He was a religious man: at least he was 
willing to make for his religion exertions and sacrifices from which 
the great majority of those who are called religious men would 
shrink. It seems strange that any attraction should have drawn him 
into a course of life which he must have regarded as highly criminal; 
and in this case none could understand where the attraction lay. 
Catharine herself was astonished by the violence of his passion. ‘‘ It 
cannot be my beauty,” she said; ‘‘for he must see that I have none; 
and it cannot be my wit; for he has not enough to know that I have 
any.” 

At the moment of the King’s accession, a sense of the new respon- 
sibility which lay on him made his mind for a time peculiarly open 
to religious impressions. He formed and announced many good res- 
olutions, spoke in public with great severity of the impious and li- 
centious manners of the age, and in private assured his Queen and 
his confessor that he would see Catharine Sedley no more. He wrote 


* Pepys, Oct. 4, 1664. + Pepys, July 1, 1663. 
t See Dorset’s satirical lines on her. 


480 _ HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


to his mistress entreating her to quit the apartments which she occu- 
pied at Whitehall, and to go to a house in St. James’s Square which 
had been splendidly furnished for her at hisexpense. He at the same 
time. promised to allow her a large pension from his privy purse. 
Catharine, clever, strongminded, intrepid, and conscious of her 
power, refused to stir. In a few months it began to be whispered 
that the services of Chiffinch were again employed, and that the mis- — 
tress frequently passed and repassed through that private door 
through which Father Huddleston had borne the host to the bedside 
of Charles. The King’s Protestant ministers had, it seems, conceived — 
a hope that their master’s infatuation for this woman might cure him 
of the more pernicious infatuation which impelled him to attack their | 
religion. She had all the talents which could qualify her to play on 
his feelings, to make game of his scruples, to set before him in a— 
strong light the difficulties and dangers into which he was running 
headlong. Rochester, the champion of the Church, exerted himself 
to strengthen her influence. Ormond, who is popularly regarded as 
the personification of all that is pure and highminded in the English 
Cavalier, encouraged the design. Even Lady Rochester was not 
ashamed to co-operate, and to co-operate in the very worst way. Her 
office was to direct the jealousy of the injured wife towards a young ~ 
lady who was perfectly innocent. The whole court took notice of 
the coldness and rudeness with which the Queen treated the poor 
girl on whom suspicion had been thrown: but the cause of Her 
Majesty’s ill humour was a mystery. Fora time the intrigue went 
on prosperously and secretly. Catharine often told the King plainly 
what the Protestant Lords of the Council only dared to hint in the 
most delicate phrases. His crown, she said, was at stake: the old 
dotard Arundell and the blustering Tyrconnell would lead him to his 
ruin. It is possible that her caresses might have done what the 
united exhortations of the Lords and the Commons, of the House of 
Austria and the Holy See, had failed to do, but for a strange mishap 
which changed the whole face of affairs. James, in a fit of fondness, | 
determined to make his mistress Countess of Dorchester in her own 
right. Catharine saw all the peril of such a step, and declined the 
invidious honour. Her lover was obstinate, and himself forced the 
patent into her hands. She at last accepted it on one condition, 
which shows her confidence in her own power and his weakness, — 
She made him give her a solemn promise, not that he would never 
quit her but that, if he did so, he would himself announce his reso- 
lution to her, and grant her one parting interview. 

As soon as the news of her elevation got abroad, the whole palace 
was in an uproar. The warm blood of Italy boiled in the veins of 
the Queen. Proud of her youth and of her charms, of her high rank 
and of her stainless chastity, she could not without agonies of grief 
and rage see herself deserted and insulted for such arival. Rochester, 
perhaps remembering how patiently, after a short struggle, Catharine 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 481 


of Braganza had consented to treat the mistresses of Charles with po- 
liteness, had expected that, after a little complaining and pouting, 
Mary of Modena would be equally submissive It wasnotso. Shedid 
not even attempt to conceal from the eyes of the world the violence 
of her emotions. Day after day the courtiers who came to see her 
dine observed that the dishes were removed untasted from the table. 
She suffered the tears to stream down her cheeks unconcealed in the 
presence of the whole circle of ministers and envoys. To the King 
she spoke with wild vehemence. ‘‘ Let me go,” she cried. ‘* You have 
made your woman a Countess: make her a Queen, Put my crown 
on her head. Only let me hide myself in some convent, where I may 
never see her more.” Then, more soberly, she asked him how he 
reconciled his conduct to his religious professions. ‘‘ You are 
ready,” she said, ‘‘to put your kingdom at hazard for the sake of 
your soul; and yet you are throwing away your soul for the sake of 
that creature.” Father Petre, on bended knees, seconded these re- 
'monstrances. It was his duty to do so; and his duty was not the 
less strenuously performed because 1t coincided with his interest. 
The King went on for a time sinning and repenting. In his hours of 
remorse his penances were severe. Mary treasured up to the end of 
her life, and at her death bequeathed to the convent of Chaillot, the 
scourge with which he had vigorously avenged her wrongs upon his 
own shoulders. Nothing but Catharine’s absence could put an end 
to this struggle between an ignoble love and an ignoble superstition. 
James wrote, imploring and commanding her to depart. He owned 
that he had promised to bid her farewell in person. ‘‘ But I know . 
too well,” he added, ‘‘the power which you have over me. I have 
- not strength of mind enough to keep my resolutions if I see you.” 
He offered her a yacht to convey her with ail dignity and comfort to 
Flanders, and threatened that if she did not go quietly she should be 
sent away by force. She at one time worked on his feelings by pre- 
tending to be ill. Then she assumed the airs of a martyr, and impu 
dently proclaimed herself a sufferer for the Protestant religion. Ther 
again she adopted the style of Join Hampden. She defied the King 
to remove her. She would try the right with him. While the Great 
Charter and the Habeas Corpus Act were the law of the land, she 
would live where she pleased. ‘‘ And Flanders!” she cried; ‘‘ never! 
Thave learned one thing from my friend the Duchess of Mazarin; 
and that is never to trust myself in a country where there are con- 
vents.” At length she selected Ireland as the place of her exile, 
probably because the brother of her patron Rochester was viceroy 
there. After many delays she departed, leaving the victory to the 
Queen.* 


eel 


* The chief materials for the history of this intrigue are the desuaiches pe 
Barillon and Bonrepaux at the beginning of the year 1686. See Barillon, se ri 


482 - HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


The history of this extraordinary intrigue would be imperfect, if it 
were not added that there is still extant a religious meditation, written 
by the Treasurer, with his own hand, on the very same day on which 
the intelligence of his attempt to govern his master by means of a 
concubine was despatched by Bonrepaux te Versailles. No compo: 
sition of Ken or Leighton breathes a spirit of more fervent and ex 
alted piety than this effusion. Hypocrisy cannot be suspected: for 
the paper was evidently meant only for the writer’s own eye, and was 
not published till he had been more than a century in his grave. So 
much is history stranger than fiction; and so true is it that nature has 
caprices which art dares not imitate. A dramatist would scarcely 
venture to bring on the stage a grave prince, in the decline of life, 
ready to sacrifice his crown in order to serve the interests of his re- 
ligion, indefatigable in making proselytes, and yet deserting and in- 
sulting a virtuous wife who had youth and beauty for the sake of a 


profligate paramour who had neither. Still less, if possible, would a — 


dramatist venture to introduce a statesman stooping to the wicked 
and shameful part of a procurer, and calling in his wife to aid him in 
that dishonourable office, yet, in his moment of leisure, retiring to his 
cleset, and there secretly pouring out his soul to his God in penitent 
tears and devout ejaculations.* 

The Treasurer soon found that, in using scandalous means for the 
purpose of obtaining a laudable end, he had committed, not only a 
crime, but a folly. The Queen was now his enemy. She affected, 
indeed, to listen with civility while the Hydes excused their recent 
eonduct as well as they could; and she occasionally pretended to use 
her influence in their favour: but she must have been more or less 
than woman if she had really forgiven the conspiracy which had 
been formed against her dignity and her domestic happiness by the 
family of her husband’s first wife. The Jesuits strongly represented 


pee Be Feb. 1-11, Feb. 8-18, Feb. 19-29, and Bonrepaux under the first four 


dates: Evelyn’s Diary, January 19; Reresby’s Memoirs; Burnet, i. 682; Sher- 


Jan. 22, Jan. 29, 
idan MS.; Chaillot MS.; Adda’s Despatches, yoy y, and Fog 1686. Adda 


writes like a pious, but weak and ignorant man. He appears to have known 
nothing of James’s past life. 5 
an, 25 


* The meditation bears date >>’ 1685-6. Bonrepaux, in his despatch of 
the same day, says, ‘‘ L’intrigue avoit 6té conduite par Milord Rochester et sa 


femme. * * * Leur projet étoit de faire gouverner le Roy d’Angleterre par — 


la nouvelle comtesse. Ils s’étoient assures d’elle.” While Bonrepaux was writ- 
ing thus, Rochester was writing as follows: ‘‘Oh God, teach me so to number 


my days that I may apply my heart unto wisdom. Teach me to number the ~ 


days that I have spent in vanity and idleness, and teach me to number those 
that I have spent in sin and wickedness. Oh God, teach me to number the days 
of my affliction too, and to give thanks for all that iscome to me from thy hand. 
Teach me likewise to number the days of this world’s greatness of which I have 


so great a share; and teach me to look upon them as vanity and vexation of. 


spirit.” 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 483 


to the King the danger which he had so narrowly escaped. His repu- 
tation, they said, his peace, his soul, had been put in peril by the 
machinations of his prime minister. The Nuncio, who would gladly 
have counteracted the influence of the violent party, and codperated 
with the moderate members of the cabinet, could not honestly or de- 
cently separate himself on this occasion from Father Petre. James 
himself, when parted by the sea from the charms which had so 
strongly fascinated him, could not, but regard with resentment and 
contempt those who had sought to govern him by means of his vices, 
’ What had passed must have had the effect of raising his own Church 
in his esteem, and of lowering the Church of England. The Jesuits, 
whom it was the fashion to represent as the most unsafe of spiritual 
guides, as sophists who refined away the whole system of evangelical 
morality, as sycophants who owed their influence chiefly to the indul- 
gence with which they treated the sins of the great, had reclaimed him 
from a life of guilt by rebukes as sharp and bold as those which 
David had heard from Nathan and Herod from the Baptist, On the 
other hand, zealous Protestants, whose favourite theme was the laxity 
of Popish casuists and the wickedness of doing evil that good might 
come, had attempted to obtain advantages for their own Church in a 
way which all Christians regarded as highly criminal. The victory 
of the cabal of evil counsellors was therefore complete. The King 
looked coldiy on Rochester. The courtiers and foreign ministers soon 
peed that the Lord Treasurer was prime minister only in name. 
e continued to offer his advice daily, and had the mortification to 
find it daily rejected. Yet he could not prevail on himself to relin- 
quish the outward show of power, and the emoluments which he di- 
rectly and indirectly derived from his great place. He did his best, 
_ therefore, to conceal his vexations from the public eye. But his vio- 
lent passions and his intemperate habits disqualified him for the part 
of a dissembler. His gloomy looks, when he came out of the council 
chamber, showed how little he was pleased with what had passed at 
the board; and, when the bottle had gone round freely, words escaped 
him which betrayed his uneasiness.* 
He might, indeed, well be uneasy. Indiscreet and unpopular 
measures followed one another in rapid succession. All thought of 
returning to the policy of the Triple Alliance was abandoned. The 
King explicitly avowed to the ministers of those Continental powers - 
with which he had lately intended to ally himself, that all his views 
had undergone a change, and that England was still to be, as she had 
been under his grandfather, his father, and his brother, of no account 
in Europe. ‘‘I am in no condition,” he said to the Spanish Ambas- 
sador, ‘‘to trouble myself about what passes abroad. It is my reso- 


ae a ~ 


: 


la fin du souper, il lui en échappa quelque chose.’’—Bonrepaux, Feb, 18-28, 1 
See also Barillon, March 1-11, 4-14. 


* “Je vis Milord Rochester comme il sortoit du conseil fort chagrin; et, bees 


484 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


lution to let foreign affairs take their course, to establish my author ity 
at home, and to do something for my religion.” A few da ys later he 
announced the same intentions to the States General.* irom that 
time to the close of his ignominious reign, he made no serious effort 
to escape from vassalage, though, to the last, he could never hear, 
without transports of rage, that men called him a vassal. 

The two events which proved to the public that Sunderland and 
Sunderland’s party were victorious were the prorogation of the Par- 
liament from February to May, and the departure of Castelmaine for: 
aie with the appointments of an Ambassador of the highest — 
rank, 

Hitherto all the business of the English government at the papal 
court had been transacted by John Caryl. This gentleman was — 
known to his contemporaries as a man of fortune and fashion, and as 
the author of two successful plays, a tragedy in rhyme which had 
been made popular by the action and recitation of Betterton, and a 
comedy which owes all its value to scenes borrowed from Molicre. 
These pieces have long been forgotten; but what Caryl could not do 
for himself has been done for him by a more powerful genius. Half 
a line in the Rape of the Lock has made his name immortal. 

Caryl], who was, like all the other respectable Roman Catholics, 
an enemy to violent courses, had acquitted himself of his delicate | 
errand at Rome with good sense and good feeling. The business 
confided to him was well done; but he assumed no public character, 
and carefully avoided all display. His mission, therefore, put the 
government to scarcely any charge, and excited scarcely any mur- 
murs. His place was now most unwisely supplied by a costly and 
ostentatious embassy offensive in the highest degree to the people of 
Engian’d, and by no means welcome to “the court of Rome. Castel- 
se had it in charge to demand a Cardinal’s hat for his confederate 

etre 

About the same time the King began to show, in an unequivocal 
manner, the feeling which he really entertained towards the banished | 
Huguenots. While he had still hoped to cajole his Parliament into — 
submission, and to become the head of an European coalition against 
France, he had affected to blame the revocation of the Edict of 
Nantes, and to pity the unhappy men whom persecution had driven 
from their country. He had caused it to be announced that, at every 
church in the kingdom, a collection would be made under his sane- 
tion for their benefit. A proclamation on this subject had been 
drawn up in terms which might have wounded the pride of a 
sovereign less sensitive and vainglorious than Lewis. But all was 


March 22, 
* Barillon, apriyi1, April 12-22, 1686. 
+ London Gazette, Feb. 11, 1685-5; Luttrell’s Dinkye Feb. 8; Van Leeuwen, < 
Feb. 9-19; Life of James, lis. 75. Orig. Mem. 


mes, ? 

r Ph i 
SY : t 

toy) 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 485 


now changed. The principles of the treaty of Dover were again the 
principles of the foreign policy of England. Ample apologies were 
therefore made for the discourtesy with which the English govern- 
ment had acted towards France in showing favour to exiled French- 
men.. The proclamation which had displeased Lewis was recalled.* 
The Huguenot ministers were admonished to speak with reverence 
of their oppressor in their public discourses, as they would answer it 
at their peril. James not only ceased to express commiseration for 


‘the sufferers, but declared that he believed them to harbour the 


worst designs, and owned that he had been guilty of an error in 
countenancing them. One of the most eminent of the refugees, 


-John Claude, had published on the Continent a small volume in 


which he described with great force the sufferings of his brethren. 
Barillon demanded that some opprobrious mark should be put on 
this book. James complied, and in full council declared it to be his 
pleasure that Claude’s libel should be burned by the hangman before 
the Royal Exchange. Even Jeffreys was startled, and ventured to 


represent that such a proceeding was without example, that the book 


was written in a foreign tongue, that it had been printed at a foreign 
press, that it related entirely to transactions which had taken place 
in a foreign country, and that no English government had ever 
animadverted on such works. James would not suffer the question 
to be discussed. ‘‘ My resolution,” he said, ‘‘is taken. It has be- 
come the fashion to treat Kings disrespectfully; and they must stand 
by each other. One King should always take another’s part: and I 
have particular reasons for showing this respect to the King of 
France.” There was silence at the board; the order was forthwith 
issued; and Claude’s pamphlet was committed to the flames, not 


_ without the deep murmurs of many who had always been reputed 


steady loyalists. + 

The promised collection was long put off under various pretexts. 
The King would gladly have broken his word: but was pledged so 
solemnly that he could not for very shame retract.{ Nothing, how- 
ever, which could cool the zeal of congregations was omitted. It 
had been expected that, according to the practice usual on such © 
occasions, the people would be exhorted to liberality from the pulpits. 
But James was determined not to tolerate declamations against his 
religion and his ally. The Archbishop of Canterbury was there- 


# Van Leeuwen, F°>-?_ 1686, 
Mar. 5, 
+ Barillon, ae May 3-13, 1686; Van Citters, May 7-17; Evelyn’s Diary, 
May 5; Luttrell’s Diary of the same date; Privy Council Book, May 2. 
¢ Lord Russell to Dr. Fitzwilliam, Jan. 22, 1686; Barillon, Feb, 15-22, rine ee 
1686. ‘Ce prince témoigne,”’ says Barillon, ‘‘une grande aversion pour eux, et 


aurait bien voulu se dispenser de la collecte, que est ordonnée en leur faveur; 
mais il n’a pas cru que cela fit possible.” 


486 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 


‘fore commanded to inform the clergy that they must merely read 
the brief, and must not presume to preach on the sufferings of the 
French Protestants.* Nevertheless the contributions were so large 
that, after all deductions, the sum of forty thousand pounds was 
paid into the Chamber of London. Perhaps none of the munificent 
subscriptions of our own age has borne so great a proportion to the 
means of the nation.+ ‘ 

The King was bitterly mortified by the large amount of the col- 
lection which had been made in obedience to his own call. He knew, 
he said, what all this liberality meant. It was mere Whiggish spite 
to himself and hisreligion.{ He had already resolved that the money ~ 
should be of no use to those whom the donors wished to benefit. 
He had been, during some weeks, in close communication with the 
French embassy on this subject, and had, with the approbation of 
the court of Versailles, determined on a course which it is not very 
easy to reconcile with those principles of toleration to which he 
afterwards pretended to be attached. The refugees were zealous for 
the Calvinistic discipline and worship. James therefore gave orders 
-that none should receive a crust of bread or a basket of coals who 
did not first take the sacrament according to the Anglican ritual.§ 
It is strange that this inhospitable rule should have been devised by 
a prince who affected to consider the Test Act as an outrage on the 
rights of conscience: for, however unjustifiable it may be to establish — 
a sacramental test for the purpose of ascertaining whether men are ~ 
fit for civil or military office, it is surely much more unjustifiable to 
establish a sacramental test for the purpose of ascertaining whether, © 
in their extreme distress, they are fit objects of charity. Nor had 
James the plea which may be urged in extenuation of the guilt of 
almost all other persecutors: for the religion which he commanded — 
the refugees to profess on pain of being left to starve, was not his — 
own religion. His conduct towards them was therefore less ex- 
cusable than that of Lewis: for Lewis oppressed them in the hope of 
bringing them over from a damnable heresy to the true Church: 
James oppressed them only for the purpose of forcing them to apos- 
tatise from one damnable heresy to ancther. 

Several Commissioners, of whom the Chancellor was one, had 
been appointed to dispense the public alms. When they met, for 


* Barillon, £2 =? 1686. 
ar 

+ Account of the Commissioners, dated March 15, 1688. : 

t ‘‘ Le Roi d’Angleterre connoit bien que les gens mal intentionnés pour lui 
sont les plus prompts et les plus disposés 4 donner considerablement. . . “ 
Sa Majesté Britannique connoit hien qu’il aurait été & propos de ne point ordon: — 
ner de collecte, et que les gens mal intentionnés contre, la réligion Catholique et 
contre lui se servent de cette occasion pour temoigner leur zéle.’’—Barillon, — 
April 19-29, 1686. 

§ Barillon, Feb. 15-25, see April 19-29, 1686; Lewis to Barillon, Mar. 5-15 


ee 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 487 


the first time, Jeffreys announced the royal pleasure. The. refugees, 
_he said, were too generally enemies of monarchy and episcopacy. 
If they wished for relief, they must become members of the Church 
of England, and must take the sacrament from the hands of his 
chaplain. Many exiles who had come full of gratitude and hope to 
apply for succour, heard their sentence, and went brokenhearted 
away.” 

May was now approaching; and that month had been fixed for the 
meeting of the Houses: but they were ag iin prorogued to November.+ 
It was not strange that the King did not wish to meet them: for he 
had determined to adopt a policy which he knew to be, in the highest 
‘degree, odious to them. From his predecessors he had inherited two 
prerogatives, of which the limits had never been defined with strict 
accuracy, and which, if exerted without any limit, would of them- 
selves have sufficed to overturn the whole polity of the State 
and of the Church. These were the dispensing power and the eccle- 
siastical supremacy. By means of the dispensing power, the King 
purposed to admit Roman Catholics, not merely to the civil and 
military, but to spiritual offices. By means of the ecclesiastical 
supremacy, he hoped to make the Anglican clergy his instruments 
for the destruction of their own religion. 

This scheme developed itself by degrees. It was not thought safe 
to begin by granting to the whol: Roman Catholic body a dispensa- 
tion from all statutes imposing penalties and tests. For nothing was 
more fully established than that such a dispensation was illegal. The 
Cabalhad, in 1672, put forth a general Declaration of Indulgence. 
The Commons, as soon as they met, had protested against it. 
- Charles the Second had ordered it to be cancelled in his presence, 
and had, both by his own mouth and by a written message, assured 
the Houses that the step which had caused so much complaint, should 
never be drawn into precedent. It would have been difficult to 
find in ali the Inns of Court a barrister of reputation to argue in 
defence of a prerogative which the Sovereign, seated on his throne 
in full Parliament, had solemnly renounced a few years before. 
But it was not quite so clear that the King might not, on special 
grounds, grant exemptions to individuals by name. The first object 
of James, therefore, was to obtain from the courts of common law 
an acknowledgment that, to this extent, at least, he possessed the 
dispensing power. 

But, though his pretensions were moderate when compared with 
those which he put forth a few months later, he soon found that he 
had against him almost the whole sense of Westminster Hall. Four 
of the Judges gave him to understand that they could not, on this 


* Barillon, April 19-29, 1686; Lady Russell to Dr. Fitzwilliam, April14. ‘He 
sent away many,” she says, ‘‘ with sad hearts.”’ 
t+ London Gazette of May 13, 1686. ~ 


488 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. | 


occasion, serve his purpose; and it is remarkable that all the four 
were violent Tories, and that among them were men who had ac- 
companied Jeffreys on the Bloody Circuit, and who had heen con- 
senting to the death of Cornish and of Elizabeth Gaunt. Jones, the 
Chief Justice of the common Pleas, a man who had never before 
shrunk from any drudgery, however cruel or servile, now held in the 
royal closet languase which might have become the lips of the purest 
magistrates in our history. He was plainly told that he must either 
give up his opinion or his place. ‘‘ For my place,”’ he answered, ‘‘1 
care little. Iam old and worn out in the service of the Crown: but 
I am mortified to find that Your Majesty thinks me capable of giving © 
a judgment which none but an ignorant or a dishonest man could 
give.” ‘‘I am determined,” said the King, ‘‘to have twelve judges 
who will be all of my mind as to this matter.” ‘‘ Your Majesty,” 
answered Jones, ‘*may find twelve Judges of your mind, but hardly 
twelve lawyers.’* He was dismissed, together with Montague, Chief 
Baron of the Exchequer, and two puisne Judges, Neville and Charl- 
ton. Oneof the new Judges was Christopher Milton, younger brother 
of the great poet. Of Christopher little is known, except that, in the 
time of the civil war, he had been a Royalist, and that he now, in 
his old age, leaned towards Popery. It does not appear that he was 
ever tjormally reconciled to the Church of Rome: but he certainly 
liad scruples about communicating with the Church of England, and 
had therefore a strong interest in supporting the dispensing power.t+ 
The King found his counsel as refractory as his Judges. The first 
barrister who learned that he was expected to defend the dispensing 
power was the Solicitor Gereral, Heneage Finch. He peremptorily 
refused, and was turned out of office on the following day.{ The 
Attorney General, Sawyer, was authorized to draw warrants author- 
ising members of the Church of Rome to hold benefices belonging to 
the Church of England. Sawyer had been deeply concerned in some 
of the harshest and most unjustifiable prosecutions of that age; and 
the Whigs abhorred him as aman stained with the blood of Russell 
and Sidney. but on this occasion he showed no want of honesty or of 
reso:ution. ‘‘Sir ” said he, ‘‘this is not merely to dispense with a 
statute: it is to annul the whole statute law from the accession of 
Elizabeth to the present day. I dare not do it; and I implore Your 
Majesty to consider whether such an attack upon the rights of the 
Church be in accordance with your late gracious promises.”§ Sawyer 
would have been instantly dismissed, as Finch had been, if the 
government could have found a successor: but this was no easy 
matter. It was necessary, for the protection of the rights of the 


* Reresby’s Memoirs; Eachard, iii. 797; Kennet, iii. 451. 
_ tLondon Gazette, April 22 and 29, 1686: Barillon, April 19-29; Evelyn’s Diary, 
June 2; Luttrell’s Diary, June 8; Dodd’s Church History. 

¢ North’s Life of Guildford, 288. 

§ Reresby’s Memoirs. 


| | es 
Paes 
1S og 


~ 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 489 


Crown, that one at least of the Crown lawyers should be a man of 
learning, ability, and experience; and no such man was willing to 
defend the dispensing power. The Attorney General was therefore 
permitted to retain his place during some months. Thomas Powis, 
an obscure barrister, who had no qualification for high employment 
except servility, was appointed Solicitor. 

_ The preliminary arrangements were now complete. There was a 
Solicitor General to argue for the dispensing power, and a bench of 
Judges to decide in favour of it. The question was therefore speedily 
brought toa hearing. Sir Edward Hales, a gentleman of Kent, had 
been converted to Popery in days when it was not safe for any man 
of note openly to declare himself a Papist. He had kept his secret, 
and, when questioned, had affirmed that he was a Protestant with a 
solemnity which did little credit to his principles. When James had 
ascended the throne, disguise was no longer necessary. Sir Edward 
publicly apostatised, and was rewarded with the command of a regi- 
ment of foot. He had held his commission more than three months 
without taking the sacrament. He was therefore liable to a penalty 
of five hundred pounds, which an informer might recover by action 
of debt. A menial servant was employed to bring a suit for this sum 
in the Court of King’s Bench. -Sir Edward did not dispute the facts 
alleged against him, but pleaded that he had letters patent authoris- 
ing him to hold his commission notwithstanding the Test Act. The 
plaintiff demurred, that is to say, admitted Sir Edward’s plea to be 
true in fact, but denied that it was a sufficient answer. Thus was 
raised. a simple issue of law to be decided by the court. <A barrister, 
who was notoriously a tool of the government, appeared for the mock 

plaintiff, and made some feeble objections to the defendant’s plea. 
The new Solicitor General replied. The Attorney General took no 
part in the proceedings. Judgment was given by the Lord Chief 
Justice, Sir Edward Herbert. He announced that he had submitted 
the question to all the twelve Judges, and that, in the opinion of 
eleven of them, the King might lawfully dispense with penal statutes 
in particular cases, and for special reasons of grave importance. The 

‘single dissentient, Baron Street was not removed from his place. He 
was aman of morals so bad that his own relations shrank from him, 
and that the Prince of Orange, at the time of the Revolution, was ad- 
vised not to see him. The character of Street makes it impossible to 
believe that he would have been more scrupulous than his brethren. 
The character of James makes it impossible to believe that a refrac- 
tory Baron of the Exchequer would have been permitted to retain his 
post. There can, therefore, be no reasonable doubt that the dissent- 
ing Judge was, like the plaintiff and the plaintiff’s counsel, acting 
collusively. It was important that there should be a great preponder- 
ance of authority in favor of the dispensing power; yet it was im- 
portant that the bench, which had been carefully packed for the oc- 
casion, should appear to be independent. One Judge, therefore, the 


490 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


least respectable of the twelve, was permitted, or more probably 
commanded, to give his voice against the prerogative.* 
The power which the courts of law had thus recognised was not 


suffered to lie idle. Within a month after the decision of the King’s” 


Bench had been pronounced, four Roman Catholic Lords were sworn 
of the Privy Council. Two of them, Powis and Bellasyse, were of 
the moderate party, and probably took their seats with reluctance 
and with many sad forebodings. The other two, Arundeil and 
Dover, had no such misgivings. + 

The dispensing power was, at the same time, employed for the pur- 
pose of enabling Roman Catholics to hold ecclesiastical preferment. 
The new Solicitor readily drew the warrants in which Sawyer had 


refused to be concerned. One of these warrants was in favour of a- 


wretch named Edward Sclater, who had two livings which he was 
determined to keep through all changes. He administered the sacra- 
ment to his parishioners according to the rites of the Church of Eng- 
land on Palm Sunday 1686. On Easter Sunday, only seven days 
later, he was at mass. The royal dispensation authorised him to re- 
tain the emoluments of his benefices. To the remonstrances of the 
patrons from whom he had received his preferment he replied in 
terms of insolent defiance, and, while the Roman Catholic cause 
yrospered, put forth an absurd treatise in defence of his apostasy. 

ut, a very few weeks after the Revolution, a great congregation as- 
sembled at St. Mary’s in the Savoy, to see him received again into 


the bosom of the Church which he had deserted. He read his re- 


cantation with tears flowing from his eyes, and pronounced a bitter 

invective against the Popish priests whose arts had seduced him. f 
Scarcely less infamous was the conduct of Obadiah Walker. He 

was an aged priest of the Church of England, and was well known 


in the University of Oxford as aman of learning. He had in the — 


late reign been suspected of leaning towards Popery, but had out- 
wardly conformed to the established religion, and had at length been 
chosen Master of University College. Soon after the accession of 
James, Walker determined to throw off the disguise which he had 
hitherto worn. He absented himself from the public worship of the 
Church of England, and, with some fellows and undergraduates 
whom he had perverted, heard mass daily in his own apartments. 


One of the first acts performed by the new Solicitor General was to 


*See the account of the ease in the Collection of State Trials; Van Citters, 


to Street, see Clarendon’s Diary, Dec. 27, 1688. 
+London Gazette, July 19, 1686. 


June 2, ; ‘ 
May 4-14.59, 1686; Evelyn's Diary, June 27; Luttrell’s Diary, June 21. Ag 


{The letters patent are in Gutch’s Collectanea Curiosa. The date is the 3d of | 


May, 1686. See Sclater’s Consensus Veterum; Gee’s reply, entitled Veteres 
Vindicati; Dr. Anthony Horneck’s account of Mr, Sclater’s recantation-of the 
errors a Popery on the 5th of May, 1689; Dodd’s Church History, part viii. book 
ii, art. 3. 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 491 


draw up an instrument which authorised Walker and his proselytes 
to hold their benefices, notwithstanding their apostasy. Builders 
were immediately employed to turn two sets of rooms into an oratory. 
In a few weeks the Roman Catholic rites were publicly performed in 
University College. A Jesuit was quartered there as chaplain. A 
press was established there under royal license for the printing of 
Roman Catholic tracts. During two years and a half, Walker con- 
tinued to make war on Protestantism with all the rancour of a rene- 
gade: but when fortune turned he showed that he wanted the cour- 
age of a martyr. He was brought to the bar of the House of Com- 
mons to answer for his conduct, and was base enough to protest that 
he had never changed his religion, that he had never cordially ap- 
proved of the doctrines of the Church of Rome, and that he had never 
tried to bring any other person within the pale of thatChurch. It was 
hardly worth while to violate the most sacred obligations of law and 
of plighted faith, for the purpose of making such converts as these.* 

In a short time the King went a step further. Sclater and Walker 
had only been permited to keep, after they became Papists, the pre- 
ferment which had been bestowed on them while they passed for 
Protestants. To confer a high office in the Established Church on 
an avowed enemy of that Church was a far bolder violation of the 
laws and of the royal word. But no course was too bold for James. 
The Deanery of Christchurch became vacant. That office was, both 
in dignity and in emolument, one of the highest in the University of 
Oxford. The Dean was charged with the government of a greater 
number of youths of high connections and of great hopes than could 
be found in any other college. He was also the head of a Cathedral. 
In both characters it was necessary that he should be a member of 
the Church: of England. Nevertheless John Massey, who was noto- 
riously a member of the Church of Rome, and who had not one single 
‘recommendation, except that he wasa member of the Church of 
Rome, was appointed by virtue of the dispensing power; and soon, 
within the walls of Christchurch, an altar was decked, at which mass 
was daily celebrated.t To the Nuncio the King said that what had 
been done at Oxford should very soon be done at Cambridge. t 

Yet even this was a small evil compared with that which Protest- 
ants had good ground to apprehend. It seemed but too probable 
that the whole government of the Anglican Church would shortly 
pass into the hands of her deadliest enemies. Three important sees 
had lately become vacant, that of York, that of Chester, and that of 
Oxford. The Bishopric of Oxford was given to Samuel Parker, a 
parasite, whose religion, if he had any religion, was that of Rome, and 


pondence, Feb. 27, 1686; Commons’ Journals, Oct. 26, 1689. 4 

+ Gutch’s Collectanea Curiosa; Wood’s Athenze Oxonienses; Dialogue between 
a Churchman and a Dissenter, 1689, 

¢ Adda, July 9-19, 1686. 


oa sd 


492 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


who called himself a Protestant only because he was encumbered 
with a wife. ‘‘I wished,” the King said to Adda, ‘‘ to appoint an 
avowed Catholic; but the time is not come. Parker is well inclined 
to us: he is one of us in feeling; and by degrees he will bring round 
his clergy.”* The Bishopric of Chester, vacant by the death of Jolin 
Pearson, a great name both in philology and in divinity, was be- 
stowed on ‘Thomas Cartwright, a still viler sycophant than Parker, 
The Archbishopric of York remained several years vacant. As no 
good reason could be found for leaving so important a place unfilled, 
men suspected that the nomination was delayed only till the King 
conld venture to place the mitre on the head of an avowed Papist. 
It is indeed highly probable that the Church of England was saved 
from the outrage solely by the good sense and good feeling of the 
Pope. Without a special dispensation from Rome no Jesuit could 
be a Bishop; and Innocent could not be induced to grant such a dis- 
pensation to Petre. 

James did not even make any secret of his intention to exert vigor- 
ously and systematically for the destruction of the Established Church 
all the powers which he possessed as her head. He plainly said 
that, by a wise dispensation of Providence, the Act of Supremacy 
would be, the means of healing the fatal breach which it had caused. 
Henry and Elizabeth had usurped a dominion which rightfully be- 
longed to the Holy See. That dominion had, in the course of succes- 
sion, descended to an orthodox prince, and would be held by him in 
trust for the Holy See. Hewas authorised by law to repress spiritual 
abuses; and the first spiritual abuse which he would repress should 
be the liberty which the Anglican clergy assumed of defending their 
own religion and of attacking the doctrines of Rome.+ 

But he was met by a great difficulty. The ecclesiastical supremacy 
which had devolved on him was by no means the same great and 
terrible prerogative which Elizabeth, James the First, and Charles 
the First had possessed. The enactment which annexed to the crown 
an almost boundless visitatorial authority over the Church, though it 
had never been formally repealed, had really lost a great part of its 
force. The substantive law remained; but it remained unaccoim- 
panied by any formidable sanction or by any efficient system of pro- 
cedure, and was therefore little more than a dead letter. 


* Add., Aug. 9 


+ ‘Ce prince m’a dit que Dieu avoit permis que toutes les loix qui ont 6t6 
faites pour établir la réligion Protestante, et détruire la réligion Catholique, ser- 
vent présentement de fondement ace qu’il veut faire pour 1’établissementde 
la vraie réligion, et le mettent en droit d’exercer un pouvoir encore plus grand 
que celui qu’ont les rois Catholiques sur les affaires ecclésiastiques dans les 
autres pays.’’—Barillon, July 12-22, 1686. To Adda His Majesty said,a few days 
later, ‘‘Che l’autorité concessale dal parlamento sopra l’Ecclesiastico senza 
alcun limite con fine contrario fosse adesso per servire al vantaggio de’medesi- 


mi Cattolici.”’ oy = 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 493 


The statute, which restored to Elizabeth the spiritual dominion 
assumed by her father and resigned by her sister, contained a clause 
authorising the sovereign to constitute a tribunal which might inves- 
tigate, reform, and punish all ecclesiastical delinquencies. Under 
the authority given by this clause the Court of High Commission was 
created. ‘The court was, during many years, the terror of Noncon- 
formists, and, under the harsh administration of Laud, became an ob- 
ject of fear and hatred even to those who most loved the Established 
Church. When the Long Parliament met, the High Commission 
was generally regarded as the most grievous of the many grievancies 
under which the nation laboured. An Act was therefore somewhat 
hastily passed, which not only took away from the Crown the power 
of appointing visitors to superintend the Church, but abolished all 
ecclesiastical courts without distinction. 

After the Restoration, the Cavaliers who filled the House of Com- 
mons, Zealous as they were for the prerogative, still remembered 
with bitterness the tyranny of the High Commission, and were by no 
means disposed to revive an institution so odious. They at the same 
time thought, and with reason, that the statute whlch had swept 
away all the courts Christian of the realm, without providing any 
substitute, was open to grave objection. They accordingly repealed 
the statute, with the exception of the part which related to the High 
Commission. Thus, the Archidiaconal Courts, the Consistory Courts, 
the Court of Arches, the Court of Peculiars, and the Court of Delegates 
were revived: but the enactment by which Elizabeth and her success- 
ors had been empowered to appoint Commissioners with visitatorial 
authority over the Church was not only not revived, but was declared, 
- with the utmost strength of language, to be completely abrogated. 
It is therefore as clear as any point of constitutional law can be that 
James the Second was not competent to appoint a Commission with 
power to visit and govern the Church of England.* But, if this 
were so, it was to little purpose that the Act of Supremacy, in high 
sounding words, empowered him to amend what was amiss in that 
Church. Nothing but a machinery as stringent as that which the ~ 
Long Parliament had destroyed could force the Anglican clergy to - 
become his agents for the destruction of the Anglican doctrine and 
discipline. He, therefore, as early as the month of April 1686, de- 
termined to revive the Court of High Commission. This design was 
not immediately executed. It encountered the opposition of every 
minister who was not devoted to France and to the Jesuits. It was 
regarded by lawyers as an outrageous violation of the law, and by 
Churchmen as a direct attack upon the Church. Perhaps the contest 
might have lasted longer, but for an event which wounded the pride 


*The whole question is lucidly and unanswerably argued in a little contem- 
porary tract, entitled ‘‘ The King’s Power in Matters Ecclesiastical fairly stated.” 
See also a concise but forcible argument by Archbishop Sancroft, Doyly’s Life 
of Sancroft, i. 92. 


494 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


and inflamed the rage of the King. He had, as supreme ordinary, 
put forth directions, charging the clergy of the establishment to ab- 
stain from touching in their discourses on controverted points of 
doctrine. Thus, while sermons in defence of the Roman Catholic 
religion were preached on every Sunday and holiday within the pre- 
cincts of the royal palaces, the Church of the state, the Church of 
the great majority of the nation, was forbidden to explain and vindi- 
cate her own principles. The spirit of the whole clerical order rose 
against this injustice. William Sherlock, a divine of distinguished 
abilities, who had written with sharpness against Whigs and Dis- 
senters, and had been rewarded by the government with the Master- 
ship of the Temple and with a pension, was one of the first who in- 
curred whe royal displeasure. His pension was stopped; and he was 
severely reprimanded.* John Sharp, Dean of Norwich and Rector 
of Saint Giles’s in the Fields, soon gave still greater offence. Hewas 
a man of learning and fervent piety, a preacher of great fame, and 
an. exemplary parish priest. In politics he was, like most of his 
brethren, a ‘Tory, and had just been appointed one of the royal chap- 
Jains. He received an anonymous letter which purported to come 
from one of his parishioners, who had been staggered by the argu- 
ments of Roman Catholic theologians, and who was anxious to bq@ 
satisfied that the Church of England was a branch of the true Church 
of Christ. No divine, not utterly lost to all sense of religious duty 
and of professional honour, could refuse to answer such acall. On 
the following Sunday Sharp delivered an animated discourse against 
the high pretensions of the see of Rome. Some of his expressions 
were exaggerated, distorted, and carried by talebearers to Whitehall. 
It was falsely said that he had spoken with contumely of the theo- 
logical disquisitions which had been found in the strong box of the 
late King, and which the present King had published. Compton, 
the Bishop of London, received orders from funderland to suspend 
Sharp till the royal pleasure should be further known. The Bishop 
was in great perplexity. His recent conduct in the House of Lords 
had given deep offence to the Court. Already his name had been 
struck out of the list of Privy Councillors. Already he had been 
dismissed from his office in the royal chapel. He was unwilling to 
give fresh provocation; but the act which he was directed to perform 
was a judicial act. He felt that it was unjust, and he was assured 
by the best advisers that it was also illegal, to inflict punishment 
without giving any opportunity for defence. He accordingly, in the 
humblest terms, represented his difficulties to the King, and privately 
requested Sharp not to appear in the pulpit for the present. Reason- 
able as were Compton’s scruples, obsequious as were his apologies, 
James was greatly incensed. What insolence to plead either natural 
justice or positive law in opposition to an express command of the 


* Letter from James to Clarendon, Feb. 18, 1685-6. 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 495 


Sovereign! Sharp was forgotten. The Bishop became a mark for 
the whole vengeance of the government.* The King felt more pain- 
fully than ever the want of that tremendous engine which had once 
coerced refractory ecclesiastics. He probably knew that, for a few 
angry words uttered against his father’s government, Bishop Williams 
had been suspended by the High Commission from all ecclesiastical 
dignities and functions. The design of reviving that formidable 
tribunal was pushed on more eagerly than ever. In July, London 
was alarmed by the news that the King had, in direct defiance of two 
Acts of Parliament drawn in the strongest terms, entrusted the whole 
government of the Church to seven Commissioners.+ The words in 
which the jurisdiction of these officers was described were loose, and 
might be stretched to almost any extent. All colleges and grammar 
schools, even those which had been founded by the liberality of pri- 
vate benefactors, were placed under the authority of the new board. 
All who depended for bread on situations in the Church or in aca- 
demical institutions, from the Primate down to the youngest curate, 
from the Vicechancellors of Oxford and Cambridge down to the 
humblest pedagogue who taught Corderius, were subjected to this 
despotic tribunal. If any one of those many thousands was sus- 
pected of doing or saying anything distasteful to the government, the 
Commissioners might cite him before them. In their mode of deal- 
ing with him they were fettered by no rule. They were themselves 
at once prosecutors and judges. The accused party was to be fur- 
nished with no copy of thecharge. He was to be examined and cross- 
examined, If his answers did not give satisfaction, he was liable to 
be suspended from his office, to be ejected from it, to be pronounced 
incapable of holding any preferment in future. If he were contu- 
macious, he might be excommunicated, or, in other words, be de- 
prived of all civil rights and imprisoned for life. He might also, at 
the discretion of the court, be loaded with all the costs of the pro- 
ceeding by which he had been reduced to beggary. No appeal was 
given. The Commissioners were directed to execute their office not- 
withstanding any law which might be, or might seem to be, inconsis- 
tent with these regulations. Lastly, lest any person should doubt 
that it was intended to revive that terrible court from which the 
Long Parliament had freed the nation, the new Visitors were directed 
to use a seal bearing exactly the same device and the same super- 
scription with the seal of the old High Commission. t 


*The best account of these transactions is in the Life of Sharp, by his son, 


Van Citters, ae 1686. 

+ Barillon, ee 1686. Van Citters, July 16-26; Privy Council Book, July 17; 
eee onoence. July 17; Evelyn’s Diary, July 14; Luttrell’s Diary, Au- 
gust 5, 6 


¢ The device was a roseandcrown. Before the device was the initial letter of 
the Sovereign’s name; after it the letter R. Round the seal was this inscription, 
“Sigillum commissariorum regis majestatis ad causas ecclesiasticas. 


~ 496 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


The chief Commissioner was the Chancellor. His presence and as- 


sent were declared necessary to every preceeding. All men knew 


how unjustly, insolently, and barbarously he had acted in courts 
where he had been, to a certain extent, restrained by the known laws 
of England. It was, therefore, not difficult to foresee how he would 
conduct himself in a situation in which he was at entire liberty to 
make forms of procedure and rules of evidence for himself. 

Of the other six Commissioners three were prelates and three lay- 
men. The name of Archbishop Sancroft stood first. But he was 
fully convinced that the court was illegal, that all its judgments 
would be null, and that by sitting in it he should incur a serious re- 
sponsibility. He therefore determined not to comply with the royal 
mandate. He did not, however, act on this occasion with that 
courage and sincerity which he showed when driven to extremity 
two years later. He begged to be excused on the plea of business 
and ill health. ‘The other members of the board, he added, were 
men of too much ability to need his assistance. These disingenuous 
apologies ill became the Primate of all England at such a crisis; nor 
did they avert the royal displeasure. Sancroft’s name was not indeed 
struck out of the list of Privy Councillors: but, to the bitter mortifi- 
cation of the friends of the Church, he was no Icnger summoned on 
Council days. ‘‘If,” said the King, ‘‘he is too sick or too busy to 
go to the Commission, it is a kindness to relieve lim from attend- 
ance at Council.’’* 

The government found no similar difficulty with Nathaniel Crewe, 
Bishop of the great and opulent see of Durham, a man nobly born, 
and raised so high in his profession that he could scarcely wish to 


rise higher, but mean, vain and cowardly. He had been made Dean ~ 


of the Chapel Royal when the Bishop of London was banished from 
the palace. The honour of being an Ecclesiastical Commissioner 
turned Crewe’s head. It was to no purpose that some of his friends 
represented to him the risk which he ran by sitting in an illegal tri- 
bunal. He was not ashamed to answer that he could not live out of 
the royal smile, and exultingly expressed his hope that his name 
would appear in history, a hope which has not been altogether dis. 


appointed. + 
Thomas Sprat, Bishop of Rochester, was the third clerical Com- 


missioner. He was a man to whose talents posterity has scarcely 


done justice. Unhappily for his fame, it has been usual to print his 
verses in collections of the British poets; and those who judge of 
him by his verses must consider him as a servile imitator, who, with- 
out one spark of Cowley’s admirable genius, mimicked whatever 


was least commendable in Cowley’s manner; but those who are — 


* Append to Clarendon’s Diary; Van Citters, Oct. 8-18, 1686; Barillon, Oct. 11- Z 


21; Doyly’s Life of Sancroft. 
+ Burnet, i, 676. 


Re. HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 497 

acquainted with Sprat’s prose writings will form a very different esti- 
mate of his powers. He was indeed a great master of our language, 
and possessed at once the eloquence of the preacher, of the contro- 
versialist, and of the historian. His moral character might have 
passed with little censure had he belonged to a less sacred profession; 
for the worst that can be said of him is that he was indoient, luxuri- 
ous, and worldly: but such failings, though not commonly regarded 
as very heinous in men of secular callings, are scandalous in a pre- 
late. The Archbishopric of York was vacant: Sprat hoped to obtain 
it, and therefore accepted: a seat at the ecclesiastical board: but he 
was too goodnatured a man to behave harshly; and he was too sensi- 
ble aman not to know that he might at some future time be called to a 
serious account by a Parliament. He therefore, though he consented 
to act, tried to do as little mischief, and to make as few enemies, as 
possible. * 

The three remaining Commissioners were the Lord Treasurer, the 
Lord President, and the Chief Justice of the King’s Bench. Roches- 
ter, disapproving and murmuring, consented to serve. Much as he 

_ had to endure at the Court, he could not bear to quit it. Much ashe 
loved the Church, he could not bring himself to sacrifice for her sake 
his white staff, his patronage, his salary of eight thousand pounds a 
year, and the far larger indirect emoluments of his office. He ex- 
cused his conduct to others, and perhaps to himself, by pleading 
that, as a Commissioner, he might be able to prevent much evil, and 
that, if he refused to act, some person less attached to the Protestant 
religion would be found to fillthe vacant place. Sunderland was the 
representative of the Jesuitical cabal. Herbert’s recent decision on 
the question of the dispensing power seemed to prove that he would 
not flinch from any service which the King might require. 

As soon as the Commission had been opened, the Bishop of Lon- 
don was cited before the new tribunal. He appeared. ‘‘I demand 
of you,” said Jeffreys, ‘‘a direct and positive answer. Why did not 
you suspend Dr. Sharp ?” 

The Bishop requested a copy of the commission in order that he 
might know by what authority he was thus interrogated. ‘‘If you 
mean,” said Jeffreys, ‘‘to dispute our authority, I shall take another 
course with you. As to the Commission, I do not doubt that you 
have seen it. At all events you may see it in any coffeehouse for a 
penny.” Theinsolence of the Chancellor’s reply appears to have 
shocked the other Commissioners; and he was forced to make some 
awkward apologies. He then turned to the point from which he had 
started. ‘‘ This,” he said, ‘‘is not a court in which written charges 
are exhibited. Our proceedings are summary, and by word of mouth. 
The question is a plain one. Why did you not obey the King?” 
With some difficulty Compton obtained a brief delay, and the assist- 


* Burnet, i. 675, ii. 629; Sprat’s Letters to Dorset, 


498 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


ance of counsel. When the case had been heard, it was evident to 
all men that the Bishop had done only what he was bound to do. 
The Treasurer, the Chief Justice, and Sprat were for acquittal. The 
King’s wrath was moved, It seemed that his Ecclesiastical Commis- 
sion would fail him as his Tory Parliament had failed him. He 
offered Rochester a simple choice, to pronounce the Bishop guilty, or 
to quit the Treasury. Rochester was base enough to yield. Comp- 
ton was suspended from all spiritual functions; and the charge of his 
great diocese was committed to his judges, Sprat and Crewe. He 
continued, however, to reside in his palace and to receive his rey- 
enues; for it was known that, had any attempt been made to deprive 
him of his temporalities, he would have put himself under the pro- 
tection of the common law; and Herbert himself declared that, at 
common law, judgment must be given against the crown. This 
consideration induced the King to pause. Only a few weeks had 
elapsed since he had packed the courts of Westminster Hall in order 
to obtain a decision in favour of his dispensing power. He now 
found that, unless he packed them again, he should not be able to 
obtain a decision in favour of the proceedings of his Ecclesiastical 
Commission. He determined, therefore, to postpone fora short time 
the confiscation of the freehold property of refractory clergymen.* 
The temper of the nation was indeed such as well might make him 
hesitate. During some months discontent had been steadily and 
rapidly increasing. ‘The celebration of the Roman Catholic worship 
had long been prohibited by Act of Parliament. During several 
generations no Roman Catholic clergyman had dared to exhibit him- 
self in any public place with the badges of his office. Against the 
regular clergy, and against the restless and subtle Jesuits by name, 
had been enacted a succession of rigorous statutes. Every Jesuit 
who set foot in this country was liable to be hanged, drawn and 
quartered. A reward was offered for his detection. He was not al- 
lowed to take advantage of the general rule, that men are not bound 
to accuse themselves. Whoever was suspected of being a Jesuit 
might be interrogated, and, if he refused to answer, might be sent to 
prison for life.t These laws, though they had not, except when 
there was supposed to be some peculiar danger, been strictly 
executed, and though they had never prevented Jesuits from resort- 
ing to England, had made disguise necessary. But all disguise was 
now thrown off. Injudicious members of the King’s Church, en- 
couraged by him, took a pride in defying statutes which were still 
of undoubted validity, and feelings which had a stronger hold of the 
national mind than atany former period. Roman Catholic chapels 
rose all over the country. Cowls, girdles of ropes, and strings of 


* Burnet, i. 677; Barillon, Sept. 6-16, 1686. The public proceedings are in the 
Collection of State Trials. 
t 27 Eliz.c. 2; 2 Jac. I. c. 34; Jac. I.c. 3. 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 495 


beads constantly appeared in the streets, and astonished a population, 
the oldest of whom had never seen a conventual garb except on the 
stage. A convent rose at Clerkenwell, on the site of the ancient. 
cloister of Saint John. The Franciscans occupied a mansion in Lin- 
coln’s Inn Fields. The Carmelites were quartered in the city. A 
society of Benedictine monks was lodged in St. James’s Palace. In 
_ the Savoy a spacious house, including a church and a school, was 
built for the Jesuits.* The skill and care with which those fathers 
had, during several generations, conducted the education of youth, 
had drawn forth reluctant praises from the wisest Protestants. 
Bacon had pronounced the mode of instruction followed in the Jesuit 
colleges to be the best yet known in the world, and had warmly ex- 
pressed his regret that so admirable a system of intellectual and 
moral discipline should be employed on the side of error.¢ It was 
not improbable that the new academy in the Savoy might, under 
royal patronage, prove a formidable rival to the great foundations of 
Eton, Westminster, and Winchester. Indeed, soon after the school 
was opened, the classes consisted of four hundred boys, about one 
half of whom were Protestants. The Protestant pupils were not re- 
quired to attend mass: but there could be no doubt that the influence 
of able preceptors, devoted to the Roman Catholic Church, and 
versed in all the arts which win the confidence and affection of youth 
would make many converts. 

These things produced great excitement among the populace, 
which is always more moved by what impresses the senses than by 
what is addressed to the reason. Thousands of rude and ignorant 
men, to whom the dispensing power and the Ecclesiastical Commis- 
_ sion were words without a meaning, saw with dismay and indigna- 
tion a Jesuit college rising on the banks of the Thames, friars in 
hoods and gowns walking in the Strand, and crowds of devotees 
pressing in at the doors of temples where homage was paid to graven 
images. Riots broke out in several parts of the country. At Coven- 
try and Worcester the Roman Catholic worship was violently inter- 
rupted.{ At Bristol the rabble, countenanced, it was said, by the 
magistrates, exhibited a profane and indecent pageant, in which the 
Virgin Mary was represented by a buffoon, and in which a mock 
host was carried in procession. Soldiers were called out to disperse 
the mob. ‘The mob, then and ever since one of the fiercest in the 
kingdom, resisted. Blows were exchanged, and serious hurts in- 
flicted.§ The agitation was great in the capital, and greater in the 
City, properly so called, than at Westminster. For the people of 
-Westminster had been accnstomed to see among them the private | 
‘thapels of Roman Catholic Ambassadors: but the City had not, 


* Life of James the Second, ii. 79, 80. Orig. Mem. 
+ De Augmentis, i. vi. 4. 

t Van Citters, May 14-24,51686. 

§ Van Citters, May 18-28, 1686; Adda, May 19-29. 


500 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


within living memory, been polluted by any idolatrous exhibition. — 


Now, however, the resident of the Elector Palatine, encouraged by 
the King, fitted up a chapel in Lime Street. The heads of the cor- 
poration, though men selected for office on account of their known 
Toryism, protested against this proceeding, which, as they said, the 
ablest gentlemen of the long robe regarded as illegal. The Lord 
Mayor was ordered to appear before the Privy Council. ‘*‘ Take 
heed what you do,” said the King. ‘‘ Obey me; and do not trouble 
yourself either about gentlemen of the long robe or gentlemen of the 
short robe.” The Chancellor took up the word, and reprimanded the 
unfortunate magistrate with the genuine eloquence of the old Bailey 
bar. The chapel was opened. AlJl the neighbourhood was soon in 


commotion. Great crowds assembled in Cheapside to attack the 


new mass house. The priests were insulted. A crucifix was taken 
out of the building and set upon the parish pump. The Lord 
Mayor came to quell the tumult, but was received with cries of ‘‘ No 
wooden gods.” The trainbands were ordered to disperse the 
crowd: but the trainbands shared in the popular feeling; and mur- 
murs were heard from the ranks: ‘‘ We cannot in conscience fight 
for Popery.”* 

The Elector Palatine was, like James, a sincere and zealous Catho- 


lic, and was, like James, the ruler of a Protestant people; but the 


two princes resembled each other little in temper and understanding. 
The Elector had promised to respect the rights of the Church which 
he found established in his dominions. He had strictly kept his 
word, and had not suffered himself to be provoked to any violence 


by the indiscretion of preachers who, in their antipathy to his faith, — 
occasionally forgot the respect which they owed to his person.t He ~ 
learned, with concern, that great offence had been given to the peo- — 


ple of London by the injudicious act of his representative, and, 


much to his honour, declared that he would forego the privilege to — 
which, as a sovereign prince, he was entitled, rather than endanger — 


“ 


the peace of a great city. ‘‘I, too,” he wrote to James, ‘‘ have Prot- 


estant subjects; and I know with how much caution and delicacy it — 
is necessary that a Catholic prince so situated should act.” James, — 
instead of expressing gratitude for this humane and considerate con- © 
duct, turned the letter into ridicule before the foreign ministers. It — 
was determined that the Elector should have a chapel in the City 
whether he would or not, and that, if the trainbands refused to do — 


their duty, their place should be supplied by the Guards.t 


* Ellis Correspondence. April 27, 1686; Barillon, April 19-29; Van Citters, © 
April 20-30; Privy Council Book, March 26; Luittrell’s Diary; Adda, a 
a 

j 


ep. > 
Mar. 26 Apr. 23 “a 
ar. 25, ‘ pees 
Apr. 5, _ April 2-12, May 3. 
+ Burnet’s Travels. t Barillon May 3h; 


? June 6, 


a 
> 
is 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 501 


The effect of these disturbances on trade was serious. The Dutch 
minister informed the States General that the business of the Ex- 
change was ata stand. The Commissioners of the Customs reported 
to the King that, during the month which followed the opening of 
the Lime Street Chapel, the receipt in the port of the Thames had 
fallen off by some thousands of pounds.* Several Aldermen, who, 
though zealous royalists appointed under the new charter, were 
deeply interested in the commercial prosperity of their city, and 
loved neither Popery nor martial law, tendered their resignations. 
But the King was resolved not to yield. He formed a camp on 
Hounslow Heath, and collected there, within a circumference of 
about two miles and a half, fourteen battalions of foot and thirty-two 
squadrons of horse, amounting to thirteen thousand fighting men. 
Twenty-six pieces of artillery, and. many wains laden with arms and 
ammunition, were dragged from the Tower through the City to 
Hounslow.+ The Londoners saw this great force assembled in their 
neighbourhood with a terror which familiarity soon diminished. A 
visit to Hounslow became their favourite amusement on holidays. 
The camp presented the appearance of a vast fair. Mingled with 
the musketeers and. dragoons, a multitude of fine gentlemen and 
ladies from Soho Square, sharpers and painted women from White- 
friars, invalids in sedans, monks in hoods and gowns, lacqueys in 
rich liveries, pedlars, orange girls, mischievous apprentices, and gap- 
ing clowns, was constantly passing and repassing through the long 
lanes of tents. From some pavilions were heard the noises of 
drunken revelry, from others the curses of gamblers. In truth the 
place was merely a gay suburb of the capital. The King, as was am- 
ply proved two years later, had greatly miscalculated. He had for- 
gotten that vicinity operates in more ways than one. He had hoped 

‘that his army would overawe London: but the result of his policy , 
was that the feelings and opinions of London took complete posses- 
sion of his army.t 

Scarcely indeed had the encampment been formed when there were 
rumours of quarrels between the Protestant and Popish soldiers.§ A 
little tract, entitled A humble and hearty Address to all English 
Protestants in the Army, had been actively circulated through the 


*Van Citters, 7°" 1636, 

= tf Ellis Correspondence, June 26, 1686; Van Citters, July 2-12; Luttrell’s Diary, 
ry 19. 

t See the contemporary poems, entitled Hounslow Heath and Caxsar’s Ghost; 
Evelyn’s Diary, June 2, 1686. A ballad in the Pepysian Collection contains the 
following lines:— 

“‘Tliked the place beyond expressing, 
i ne’er saw a camp So fine, 
Not a maid in a plain dressing, 
But eh taste a glass of wine.”’ 


§ Luttrell’s Diary, June 18, 1 


' = 
f = f 

4 es ly 

uw 


ranks. The writer vehemently exhorted the troops to use their arms 
in defence, not of the mass book, but of the Bible, of the Great 
Charter, and of the Petition of Right. He was a man already under 
the frown of power. His character was remarkable, and his history 
not uninstructive. : 

His name was Samuel] Johnson. He was a priest of the Church 
of England, and had been chaplain to Lord Russell. John- 
son was one of those persons who are mortally hated by their 
opponents, and less loved than respected by their allies. His 
morals were pure, his religious feelings ardent, his learning ~ 
and abilities not contemptible, his judgment weak, his temper ° 
acrimonious, turbulent and unconquerably stubborn. His _ pro- 
fession made him peculiarly odious to the zealous supporters of 
monarchy; for a republican in holy orders was a strange and almost 
an unnatural being. During the late reign Johnson had published a 
book entitled Julian the Apostate. The object of the work was to 
show that the Christians of the fourth century did not hold the doce- 
trine of nonresistance. It was easy to produce passages from Chry- 
sostom and Jerome written in a spirit very different from that of the 
Anglican divines who preached against the Exclusion Bill. John. 
son, however, went further. He attempted to revive the odious im- 
putation which had, for very cbvious reasons, been thrown by 
Libanius on the Christian soldiers of Julian, and insinuated that the 
dart which slew the imperial renegade came, not from the enemy, 
but from some Rumbold or Ferguson in the Roman ranks. A hot” 
controversy followed. Whig and Tory disputants wrangled fiercely 
about an obscure passage, in which Gregory of Naziansus praises a— 
pious Bishop who was going to bastinado somebody. The Whigs 
maintained that the holy man was going to bastinado the Emperor; 
‘the Tories that, at the worst, he was only going to bastinado a cap-— 
tain of the guard. Johnson wrote a reply to his assailants, in which 
he drew an elaborate parallel between Julian and James, then Duke 
of York. Julian had, during many years, pretended to abhor idol- 
atry, while in heart an idolater. Julian had, to serve a turn, occa- 
sionally affected respect for the rights of conscience. Julian had 
punished cities which were zealous for the true religion, by taking 
awuy their municipal privileges. Julian had, by his flatterers, been 
called the Just. James was provoked beyond endurance. Johnson 
was prosecuted for a libel, convicted, and condemned to a fine 
which he had no means of paying. He was therefore kept in gaol; 
and it seemed likely that his confinemement would end only with 
his life.* 

Over the room which he occupied in the King’s Bench prison lodg- 
ed another defender whose character well deserves to be studied. 


\ 


502 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


* See the memoirs of Johnson, prefixed to the folio edition o7 his life, his 
Julian, and his answer to his opponents. See also Hickes’s Jovian. 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 503 


This was Hugh Speke, a young man of good family, but of a singu- 
larly base and depraved nature. His love of mischief and of dark 
and crooked ways amounted almost to madness. To cause confusion 
without being found out was his business and his pastime; and he 
had a rare skill in using honest enthusiasts as the instruments of his 
coldblooded malice. He had attempted, by means of one of his pup- 
pets, to fasten on Charles and James the crime of murdering Essex 
in the Tower. On this occasion the agency of Speke had been 
traced; and though he succeeded in throwing the greater part of the 
blame on his dupe, he had not escaped with impunity. He was now 
a prisoner; but his fortune enabled him to live with comfort; and he 
was under so little restraint that he was able to keep up regular com- 
munication with one of his confederates who managed a secret 
press. 

Johnson was the very man for Speke’s purposes, zealous and in- 
trepid, a scholar and a practiced controversialist, yet as simple as a 
child. A close intimacy sprang up between the two fellow prison- 
ers. Johnson wrote a succession of bitter and vehement treatises 
Which Speke conveyed to the printer. When the camp was formed 
at Hounslow, Speke urged Johnson to compose an address which 
might excite the troops to mutiny. The paper was instantly drawn 
up. Many thousands of copies were struck off and brought to 
Speke’s room, whence they were distributed all over the country, and 
especially among the soldiers. A milder government than that 
which thenruled England would have been moved to high resent- 
ment by such a provocation. Strict search was made. A subordi- 
nate agent who had been employed to circulate the address saved 
himself by giving up Johnson; and Johnson was not the man to save 
himself by giving up Speke. An information was filed, and a con- 
viction obtained withovi difficulty. Julian Johnson, as he was pop- 
ularly called, was sentenced to stand thrice in the pillory, and to be 
whipped from Newgate to Tyburn. The Judge, Sir Francis With- 
ins, told the criminal to be thankful for the great lenity of the Attor- 
ney General, who might have treated the case as one of high treason. 
“Lowe him no thanks, ” answered Johnson, dauntlessly. ‘‘ Am J, 
whose only crime is that I have defended the Church and the laws, 
to be grateful for being scourged like a dog, while Popish scribblers 
are suffered daily to insult the Church and to violate the laws with 
impunity?” The energy with which he spoke was such that both 
the Judges and the crown lawyers thought it necessary to vindicate 
themselves, and to protest that they knew of no Popish publications 
such as those to which the prisoner alluded. He instantly drew 
from his pocket some Roman Catholic books and trinkets which 
Were then freely exposed for sale under the royal patronage, read 
aloud the titles of the books, and threw a rosary across the table to 
the King’s counsel. ‘‘ And now,” he cried with a loud voice, ‘‘I 
lay this information before God, before this court, and before the Eng- 


504 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


lish people. We shall soon see whether Mr. Attorney will do his 
duty.” 
it was resolved that, before the punishment was inflicted, Johnson 
should be degraded from the priesthood. ‘The prelates who had 
been charged by the Ecclesiastical Commission with the care of the 
diocese of London cited him before them in the chapter house of St. 
Paul’s Cathedral. The manner.in which he went through the cere- 
mony made a deep impression on many minds. When he was 
stripped of his sacred robe he exclaimed, ‘‘ You are taking away my 
gown because I have tried to keep your gowns on your backs.” ‘The 
only part-of the formalities which seemed to distress him was the 
plucking of the Bible out of his hand. He made a faint struggle to © 
retain the sacred book, kissed it, and burst into tears. ‘‘ You can-— 
not,” he said, ‘‘deprive me of the hopes which I owe to it.” Some 
attempts were made to obtain a remission of the flogging. A Roman 
Catholic priest offered to intercede in consideration of a bribe of two — 
hundred pounds. The money was raised; and the priest did his” 
best, but in vain. -‘‘Mr. Johnson,” said the King, ‘has the spirit of 
a martyr; and it is fit that he should be one.” William the Third 
said, a few years later, of one of the most acrimonious and intrepid — 
Jacobites, ‘‘He has set his heart on being a martyr; and I have set 
mine on disappointing him.” These two speeches would alone suf- 
fice to explain the widely different fates of the two princes. 1 
The day appointed for the flogging came. A whip of nine lashes” 
was used. Three hundred and seventeen stripes were inflicted; but 
the sufferer never winced. He afterwards said that the pain was — 
cruel, but that, as he was dragged at the tail of the cart, he remem- ~ 
bered how patiently the cross had been borne up Mount Calvary, and — 
was so much supported by the thought that, but for the fear of im- 4 
curring the suspicion of vainglory, he would have sung a psalm: 
with as firm and cheerful a voice as if he had been worshipping God 
in the congregation. It is impossible not to wish that so much hero- ‘ 
ism had been less alloyed by intemperance and intolerance.* : 
Among the clergy of the Church of England Johnson found no : 
sympathy. He had attempted to justify rebellion: he had even hint- — 
ed approbation of regicide; and they still, in spite of much provoca-_ 
tion, clung to the doctrine of nonresistance. But they saw with ; 
alarm and concern the progress of what they considered as a noxious — 
superstition, and, while they abjured all thought of defending their 
religion by the sword, betook’ themselves manfully to weapons of a — 
different Kind. To preach against the errors of Popery was not re-— 
garded by them as a point of duty and a point of honour. The Lon- . 


* Life of Johnson, prefixed to his works; Secret iictore of the happy Revo- 


lution, by Hugh Speke; State Trials; Van Citters, iE > 1686. Van Citters | 
gives the best account of the trial. I have seen a broatee which confirms his — 
narrative. 4 


\ 
x 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 505 


don clergy, who were then in abilities and influence decidedly at the 
head of their profession, set an example which was bravely followed 
by their ruder brethren all over the country. Had only a few bold 
men taken this freedom, they would probably have been at once 
cited before the Ecclesiastical Commission; but it was hardly possi- 
ble to punish an offence which was commited every Sunday by 
thousands of divines, from Berwick to Penzance. The presses of 
the capital, of Oxford, and of Cambridge, never rested. The Act 
which subjected literature to a censorship did not seriously impede 
the exertions of Protestant controversialists; for that Act contained 
a proviso in favour of the two Universities, and authorised the publi- 
cation of theological works licensed by the Archbishop of Canter- 
bury. It was therefore out of the power of the government to si- 
_lence the defenders of the established religion. They were a numer- 
ous, an intrepid, anda well appointed band of combatants. Among 
them were eloquent declaimers, expert dialecticians, scholars deeply 
read in the writings of the fathers, and in all parts of ecclesiastical 
history. Some of them, at a later period, turned against one another 
the formidable arms which they had wielded against the common 
enemy, and by their fierce contentions and insolent triumphs brought 
reproach on the Church which they had saved. But at present they 
formed an united phalanx. In the van appeared a rank of steady 
and skilful veterans, Tillotson, Stillingfleet, Sherlock, Prideaux, 
Whitby, Patrick, Tenison, Wake. The rear was brought up by the 
most distinguished bachelors of arts who Were studying for deacon’s 
orders. Conspicuous amongst the recruits whoin Cambridge sent to 
the field was a distinguished pupil of the great Newton, Henry 
Wharton, who had, a few months before, been senior wrangler of 
his year, and whose early death was soon after deplored by men of 
all parties as an irreparable loss to letters.* Oxford was not Jess 
proud of a youth, whose great powers, first essayed in this conflict, 
afterwards troubled the Church and the State during forty eventful 
years, Francis Atterbury. By such.men as these every question in 
issue between the Papists and the Protestants was debated, some- 
times in a popular style which boys and women could comprehend, 
sometimes with the utmost subtlety of logic, and sometimes with an 
immense display of learning. The pretensions of the Holy See, the 
authority of tradition, purgatory, transubstantiation, the sacrifice of 
the mass, the adoration of the host, the denial of the cup to the laity, 
confession, penance, indulgences, extreme unction, the invocation of 
Saints, the adoration of images, the celibacy of the clergy, the mo- 
nastic vows, the practice of celebrating public worship in a tongue 
‘unknown to the multitude, the corruptions of the court of Rome, the 
history of the Reformation, the characters of the chief Reformers, 
were copiously discussed. Great numbers of absurd legends about 


* See the Preface to Henry Wharton’s Posthumous Sermons, 


508 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


miracles wrought by saints and relics were translated from the 
Italian, and published as specimens of the priestcraft by which the — 
greater part of Christendom had been fooled. Of the tracts put 
forth on these subjects by Anglican divines during the short reign 
of James the Second many have probably perished. Those which 
may still be found in our great libraries make up a mass of near 
twenty thousand pages. * 

The Roman Catholics did not yield the victory without a struggle. 
One of them, named Henry Hills, had been appointed printer to 
the royal household and chapel, and had been placed by the King 
at the head of a great office in London from which theological tracts 
came forth by hundreds. Obadiah Walker’s press was not less active 
at Oxford. But, with the exception of some bad translations of 
Bossuet’s admirable works, these establishments put forth nothing 
of the smallest value. It was indeed impossible for any intelligent 
and candid Roman Catholic to deny that the champions of his Church 
were, in every talent and acquirement, completely overmatched. 
The ablest of them would not, on the other side, have been consid- 
ered as of the third rate. Many of them, even when they had 
something to say, knew not how to say it. They had been excluded 
by their religion from English schools and universities; nor had they 
ever, till the accession of James, found England an agreeable, or even 
a safe, residence. They had therefore passed the greater part of 
their lives on the Continent, and had almost unlearned their mother 
tongue. When they preached, their outlandish accent moved the 
derision of the audience. They spelt like washerwomen. ‘Their 
diction was disfigured by foreign idioms; and, when they meant to 
be eloquent, they imitated, as well as they could, what was con: 
sidered as fine writing in those’ Italian academies where rhetoric had 
then reached the last stage of corruption. Disnutants labouring un- 
der these disadvantages would scarcely, even with the truth on their 
side, have been able to make head against men whose style is emi- 
nently distinguished by simple purity and grace.t 


eS — SS ee ee ee 


* This I can attest from my own researches. There is an excellent collection 
in the British Museum. Birch tells us, in his Life of Tillotson, that Archbishop 
Wake had not been able toform even a perfect catalogue of all the tracis pub 
lished in this controversy. 

+ Cardinal Howard spoke strongly to Burnet at Rome on this subject. Bur- 
net, i. 662. There is a curious passage to the same effect in a despatch of Baril- 
lon or Bonrepaux: but I have mislaid the reference. 

One of the Roman Catholic divines who engaged in this controversy, a Jesuit 
named Andrew Pulton, whom Mr. Oliver, in his biography of the Order, pro- 
nounces to have been a man of Cistinguished ability, very frankly owns his 
deficiencies. ‘A. P., having b en eighteen years out of his own country, pre: 
tencs not yet toany perfection of the English expression or orthcgraphy.”’ His 
spelling is indeed deplorabie. In one cf his letters wright is put for write, woed 
for would. He challenged Tenison to dispute with him in Latin, that they 
might be on equal terms. In a contemporary satire, entitled the Advice, is 
the following couplet. 


‘*Send Pulton to be lashed at Busby’s school, 
That he in print no longer play the fool.”’ 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 507 


The situation of England in the year 1686 cannot be better de- 
scribed than in the words of the French Ambassador. ‘‘ The dis- 
content,” he wrote, ‘‘is great and general: but the fear of in- 
curring still worse evils restrains all who have anything to lose. 
The King openly expresses his joy at finding himself in a situa- 
tion to strike bold strokes. He likes to be complimented on this 
subject. He has talked to me about it, and has assured me that he 
will not flinch.” * 

Meanwhile in other parts of the empire events of grave importance 
had taken place. The situation of the episcopalian Protestants of 
Scotland differed widely from that in which their English brethren 
stood. In the south of the island the religion of the state was the 
religion of the people, and had a strength altogether independent of the 
strength derived from the support of the government. The sincere 
conformists were far more numerous than the Papists and the Prot- 
estant Dissenters taken together. The Established Church of Scot- 
land was the Church of a minority. The lowland population was 
generally attached to the Presbyterian discipline. Prelacy was ab- 
horred by the great body of Scottish Protestants, both as an unscrip- 
tural and as a foreign institution... It was regarded by the disciples 
of Knox as a relic of the abominations of Babylon the Great. It 
painfully reminded a people proud of the memory of Wallace and 
Bruce that Scotland, since her sovereigns had succeeded to a fairer 
inheritance, had been independent in name only. The episcopal 
polity was also closely associated in the public mind with all the 
evils produced by twenty-five years of cruel and corrupt malad- 
ministration. Nevertheless this polity stood, though on a narrow 
basis and amidst fearful storms, tottering indeed, yet upheld by the 
civil magistrates, and leaning for support, whenever danger became 
serious, on the power of England. The records of the Scottish Par- 
liament were thick set with laws denouncing vengeance on those 
who in any direction strayed from the prescribed pale. By an Act 
passed in the time of Knox, and breathing his spirit, it was a high 


Another Roman Catholic, named William Clench, wrote a treatise on the 
Pope’s supremacy, and dedicated it to the Queen in Italian. The following speci- 
men of his style may suffice. ‘ O delsagro marito fortunata consorte! O dolee 
alleviamento d’affari alti! Ograto ristoro di pensieri noiosi, nel cui petto latteo, 
lucente specchio d’illibata matronal_pudicizia, nel cui seno odorato, come in 
me d’amor, si ritira il Giacomo! O beata regia coppia! O felice inserto tra 

‘invincibil leoni e le candide aquile!”’ 

Clench’s English is of a piece with his Tuscan. For example, ‘Peter signifies 
an inexpugnable rock, able to evacuate all the plots of hell’sdivan, and nau- 
fragate all the lurid designs of empoisoned heretics.” 

Another Roman Catholic treatise, entitled ‘‘The Church of England truly 
represented,” begins by informing us that ‘‘the ignis fatuus of reformation, 
which had grown to a comet by many acts of spoil and rapine, had been 
ushered into England, purified of the filth which it had contracted among the 
lakes of the Alps.” 

* Barillon, July 19-20, 1686, 


508 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, 


crime to hear mass, and the third offence was capital.* An Act re- 
cently passed, at the instance of James, made it death to preach in 
any Presbyterian conventicle whatever, and even to attend such a 
conventicle in the open air.+ The Eucharist was not, as in England, 
degraded into a civil test; but no person could hold any office, 
could sit in Parliament, or could even vote for a member of Parlia- 
ment, without subscribing, under the sanction of an oath, a decla- 
ration which condemned in the strongest terms the principles both of 
the Papists and of the Covenanters. t 

In the Privy Council of Scotland there were two parties corre- 
sponding to the two parties which were contending against each other 
at Whitehall. William Douglas, Duke of Queensberry, was Lord 
Treasurer, and had, during some years, been considered as first 
minister. He was nearly connected by affinity, by similarity of 
opinions, and by similarity of temper, with the Treasurer of England. 
Both were Tories: both were men of hot temper and strong preju- 
dices: both were ready to support their master in any attack on the 
civil liberties of his people; but both were sincerely attached to the 
Established Church. Queensberry had early notified to the court 
that, if any innovation affecting that Church were contemplated, to 
such innovation he could be no party. But among his colleagues 
were several men not less unprincipled than Sunderland. In truth 
the Council chamber at Edinburgh had been, during a quarter of a 
century, aseminary of all public and all private vices; and some of 
the politicians whose character had been formed there hada peculiar 
hardness of the heart and forehead to which Westminster, even in 
that bad age, could hardly show anything quite equa]. The Chan- 
cellor, James Drummond, Earl of Perth, and his brother the Secre- 
tary of State, John Lord Melfort, were bent on supplanting Queens- 
berry. The Chancellor had already an unquestionable title to the 
royal favour. He had brought into use a little steel thumbscrew 
which gave such exquisite torment that it had wrung confessions 
even out of men on whom His Majesty's favourite boot had been 
tried in vain. But it was well known that even barbarity was not 
so sure a way to the heart of James as apostasy, therefore, Perth and 
Melfort resorted with a certain audacious baseness which no Eng- 
lish statesman could hope to emulate: They declared that the papers 
found in the strong box of Charles the Second had converted them 
both to the true faith; and they began to confess and to hear mass. || 
How little conscience had to do with Perth’s change of religion he 
amply proved ‘by taking a wife, a few weeks later, in direct defi- 
ance of the laws of the Church which he had just joined, a lady who 


was his cousin german, without waiting for a dispensation. hen 
* Act Parl. Aug. 24, 1560; Dec. 15, 1567. § Burnet, i. 584. 
+ Ibid. May 8, 1685. | Ibid. i. 652, 653. 


¢ Ibid. Aug. 31, 1681. 


’ * ie 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 509 


the good Pope learned this, he said, with scorn and indignation 
which well became him, that this was-a strange sort of conversion.* 
But James was more easily satisfied. The apostates presented them- 
selves at Whitehall, and there received such assurances of his 
favour, that they ventured to bring direct charges against the Trea- 
surer. Those charges, however, were so evidently frivolous that 
James was forced to acquit the accused minister; and many thought 
that the Chancellor had ruined himself by his malignant eagerness to 
ruin his rival. There werea few, however, who judged more correctly. 
Halifax, to whom Perth expressed some apprehensions, answered 
with a sneer that there was no danger. ‘‘ Be of good cheer, my Lord: 
thy faith hath made thee whole.” ‘Thr prediction was correct. Perth 
and Melfort went back to Edinburgh, the real heads of the govern- 
ment of their country.+ Another member of the Scottish Privy Coun- 
cil, Alexander Stuart, Earl of Murray, the descendant and heir of the 
Regent, abjured the religion of which his illustrious ancestor had 
been the foremost champion, and declared himself a member of 
the Church of Rome. Devoted as Queensberry had always been to 
the cause of prerogative, he could not stand his ground against com- 
petitors who were willing to pay such a price for the favour of the 
Court. He had to endure a succession of mortifications and humili- 
ations similar to those which, about the sam- time, began to embitter 
the life of his friend Rochester. Royal letters came down authorising 
Papists to hold offices without taking the test. The clergy were 
strictly charged not to reflect on the Roman Catholic religion in their 
discourses. The Chancellor took on himself to send the macers of 
the Privy Council round to the few printers and booksellers who 
could then be found in Edinburgh, charging them not to publish any 
work without his license. It was well understood that this order was 
intended to prevent the circulation of Protestant treatises. One hon- 
est stationer told the messengers that he had in his shop a book which 
reflected in very coarse terms on Popery, and begged to know whether 
he might sell it. They asked to see it; and he showed them a copy 
of the Bible.t A cargo of copes, images, beads, crosses and censcrs 
arrived at Leith directed to Lord Perth. The importation of such 
articles had long been considered as illegal; but now the officers of 
the customs allowed the superstitious garments and trinkets to pass.§ 
In a short time it was known that a Popish chapel had been fitted up 
in the Chancellor’s house, and that mass was regularly said there. 
The mob rose. The mansion where the idolatrous rites were cele- 
brated was fiercely attacked. The iron bars which- protected the 
windows were wrenched off. Lady Perth andsome of her female 
friends were pelted with mud. One rioter was scized, and ordered 
by the Privy Council to be whipped. His fellows rescued him and 


* Burnet, i. 678. + Fountainhall, Jan. 28, 1685-6, 
+ Ibid. i 655, § Ibid. Jan. 11, 1685-6. 


M. E. i.—17 


q 


beat the hangman. ‘The city was all night in confusion. The stu- 
dents of ‘the University mingled with*the crowd and animated the 
tumult. Zealous burghers drank the health of the college lads and — 
coufusion to Papists, and encouraged each other to face the troops. 
The troops were already under arms. They were received with a 
shower of stones, which wounded an officer. Orders were given to 
fire; and several citizens were killed. The disturbance was serious; 
but the Drummonds, inflamed by resentment and ambition, exagger- 
ated it strangely. Queensberry observed that their reports would 
lead any person, who had not witnessed what had passed, to believe 
that a sedition as formidable as that of Masaniello had been raging at — 
Edinburgh. The brothers in return accused the Treasurer, not only 
of extenuating the crime of the insurgents, but of having prompted 
it, and did all in their power to obtain evidence of his guilt. One of 
the ringleaders, who had been taken, was offered a pardon if he 
would own that Queensberry had set him on; but the same religious 
enthusiasm, which had impelled the unhappy prisoner to criminal 
violence, prevented him from purchasing his life by a calumny. — 
He and several of his accomplices were hanged. <A soldier, who was 
accused of exclaiming, during the affray, that he should like to 
run his sword through a Papist, was shot; and Edinburgh was again 
quiet: but the sufferers were regarded as martyrs; and the Popish 
Chancellor became an object of mortal hatred, which in no long time 
was largely gratified.* 
The King was much incensed. The news of the tumult reached 
him when the Queen, assisted by the Jesuits, had just triumphed — 
over Lady Dorchester and her Protestant allies. The malecontents 
should find, he declared, that the only effect of the resistance offered 
to his will was to make him more and more resolute.+ He sent or- 
ders to the Scottish Council to punish the guilty with the utmost se- 
verity, and to make unsparing use of the boot.{ He pretended to be 
fully convinced of the Treasurer’s innocence, and wrote to that min- 
ister in gracious words; but the gracious words were accompanied by 
ungracious acts. The Scottish Treasury was put into commission in 
-spite of the earnest remonstrances of Rochester, who probably saw 
his own fate prefigured in that of his kinsman.§ Queensberry was, 
indeed, named First Commissioner, and was made President of the 
Privy Council: but his fall, though thus broken, was still a fall. He 
was also removed from the government of the castle of Edinburgh, 


510 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. - 


* Fountainhall, Jan. 31, and Feb. 1, 1685-6; Burnet, i. 678, Trials of David 
ree and Alexander Keith, in the Collection of State Trials; Bonrepaux, ~ 

eb. 11-21. 

+ Lewisto Barillon, Feb. 18-28, 1686. : : 

+ Fountainhall, Feb. 16; Wodrow, book iii. chap. x. sec. 3. ‘* We require,” 
His Majesty graciously wrote, ‘that you spare no legal trial by torture or oth 
erwise.”’ 

§ Bonrepaux, Feb. 18-28, 1686. 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 511 


and was succeeded in that confidentiai post by the Duke of Gordon, 
a Roman Catholic.* ; 

And now a letter arrived from London, fully explaining to the . 
Scottish Privy Council the intentions of the King. What he wanted 
was that the Roman Catholics should be exempted from all Jaws im- 
posing penalties and disabilities on account of nonconformity, but 
that the persecution of the Covenanters shouid go on without mitiga- 
tion. ‘This scheme encountered strenuous opposition in the Coun- 
cil. Some members were unwilling to see the existing laws relaxed. 
Others, who were by no means averse to relaxation, felt that it would 
be monstrous to admit Roman Catholics to the highest honours of the 
State, and yet to leave unrepealed the Act which made it death to 
attend a Presbyterian conventicle. The answer of the board was, 
therefore, less obsequious than usual. The King in reply sharply 
reprimanded his undutiful Councillors, and ordered three of them, 
the Duke of Hamilton, Sir George Lockhart, and General Drummond, 
to attend him at Westminster. Hamilton’s abilities and knowledge, 
though by no means such as would have sufficed to raise an obscure 
man to eminence, appeared highly respectable in one who was 
premier peer of Scotland. Lockhart had long been regarded as one 
of the first jurists, logicians, and orators that his country had pro- 
duced, and enjoyed also that sort of consideration which is derived 
from large possessions; for his estate was such as at that time very 
few Scottish nobles possessed.{t He had been lately appointed Pres- 
ident of the Court of Session. Drummond, a cousin of Perth and 
Melfort, was commander of the forces in Scotland. He was a loose 
and profane man: but a sense of honour which his two kinsmen 
wanted restrained him from public apostasy. He lived and died, in 
the significant phrase of one of his countrymen, a bad Christian, but 
a bear: Protestant.§ 

James was pleased by the dutiful language which the three Coun- 
cillors used when first they appeared before him. He spoke highly 
of them to Barillon, and particularly extolled Lockhart as the ablest 
and most eloquent Scotchman living. They soon proved, however, 
less tractable than had been expected; and it was rumoured at Court 
that they had been perverted by the company which they had kept in’ 
London. Hamilton lived much with zealous churchmen; and it might 
be feared that Lockhart, who was related to the Wharton family, had 
fallen into still worse society. In truth it was natural that states- 
men, fresh from a country where opposition in any other form than 
that of insurrection and assassination had long been almost unknown, 
and where all that was not lawless fury was abject submission, 
should have been struck by the earnest and stubborn, yet sober, dis- 


+ Barillon, April 19-29, 1686; Burnet, i. 370. 
§ The words are in a letter of Johnstone of Waristoun 


512 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


content which pervaded England, and should have been emboldened 
to try the experiment of constitutional resistance to the royal will. 
They indeed declared themselves willing to grant large relief to the 
Roman Catholics; but on two conditions; first, that similar indul- 
gence should be extended to the Calvinistic sectaries; and, secondly, 
that the King should bind himself by a solemn promise not to attempt 
anything to the prejudice of the Protestant religion. ‘ 

Both conditions were highly distasteful to James. He reluctantly 
agreed, however, after a dispute which lasted several days, that some 
indulgence should be granted to the Presbyterians; but he would by 
no means consent to allow them the full liberty which he demanded 
for members of his own communion.* To the second condition pro- 
posed by the three Scottish Councillors he positively refused to listen. 
The Protestant religion, he said, was false; and he would not give 
any guarantee that he would not use his power to the prejudice of a 
false religion. The altercation was long, and was not brought to a 
conclusion satisfactory to either party.+ 

The time fixed for the meeting of the Scottish Estates drew near; 
and it was necessary that the three Councillors should leave London 
to attend their parliamentary duty at Edinburgh. On this occasion 
‘another affront was offered to Queensberry. In the late session he 
had held the office of Lord High Commissioner, and had in that ca- 
pacity represented the majesty of the absent King. This dignity, 
the greatest to which a Scottish noble could aspire, was now trans- 
ferred to the renegade Murray. 

On the twenty-ninth of April the Parliament met at Edinburgh. 
A letter from the King was read. He exhorted the Estates to give 
relief to his Roman Catholic subjects, and offered in return a free 
trade with England and an amnesty for political offences. A com- 
mittee was appointed to draw up an answer. That committee, though 
named by Murray, and composed of Privy Councillors and courtiers, 
framed a reply, full indeed of dutiful and respectful expressions, yet 
clearly indicating a determination to refuse what the King demanded. 
The Estates, it was said, would go as far as their consciences would 
gliow to meet His Majesty’s wishes respecting his subjects of the 
Roman Catholic religion. These expressions were far from satisfying 
the Chancellor; yet such as they were, he was forced to content 
himself with them, and even had some difficulty in persuading the 
Parliament to adopt them. Objection was taken by some zealous 
Protestants to the mention made of the Roman Catholic religion. 


* Some words of Barillon deserve to be transcribed. They would alone suffice 
to decide a question which ignorance and party spirit have done much to per- 
plex. ‘‘ Cette liberté accordée aux nonconformistes a faite une grande difficulté, 
et a 6té débattue pendant plusieurs (aur Le Roy d’Angleterre avoit fort envie 
que les Catholiques eussent seuls la liberté de l’exercice de leur religion.”’ Aprii 


19-29, 1686. 
+ Barillon, April 19-29, 1686; Citters, April 13-23, 20-30, May 9-19. 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. © 513 


There was no such religion. There was an idolatrous apostasy, 
which the laws punished with the halter, and to which it did not 
become Christian men to give flattering titles. To call such a super- 
stition Catholic was to give up the whole question which was at issue 
between Rome and the reformed Churches. The offer of a free trade 
with England was treated as an-insult. ‘‘ Our fathers,” said one 
orator, ‘‘ sold their king for southern gold; and we still lie under the 
reproach of that foul bargain. Let it not be said of us that we have 
sold our God!’ Sir John Lauder of Fountainhall, one of the Sena- 
- tors of the College of Justice, suggested the words, ‘‘ the persons 
commonly called Roman Catholics.” ‘ Would you nickname His 
Majesty?” exclaimed the Chancellor. The answer drawn by the 
committee was carried; but a large and respectable minority voted 
against the proposed words as too courtly.* It was remarked that 
the representatives of the towns were, almost to a man, against the 
government. Hithertothose members had been of very small account 
in the Parliament, and had generally been considered as the retainers 
of powerful noblemen. They now showed, for the first time, an in- 
dependence, a resolution, and a spirit of combination which alarmed 
the court.+ 

The answer was so unpleasing to James that he did not suffer it to 
be printed in the Gazette. Soon he learned that a law, such as he 
wished to see passed, would not even be brought in. ‘The Lords of 
Articles whose business was to draw up the Acts on which the Es- 
tates were afterwards to deliberate, were virtually nominated by him- 
self. Yet even the Lords of Articles proved refractory. When they 
met, the three Privy Councillors who had lately returned from 
London took the lead in opposition to the royal will. Hamilton de- 
clared plainly that he could not do what was asked. He was a 
faithful and loyal subject; but there was a limit imposed by con- 
science. ‘‘ Conscience!’ said the Chancellor; ‘‘conscience is a vague 
word, which signifies anything or nothing.” Lockhart, who sate in 
Parliament as representative of the great county of Lanark, struck 
in. ‘‘If conscience,” he said, ‘‘ be a word without meaning, we will 
change it for another phrase which, I hope, means something. For 
conscience let us put the fundamental laws of Scotland.” These 
words raised a fierce debate. General Drummond, who represented 
Perthshire, declared that he agreed with Hamilton and Lockhart. 
Most of the Bishops present took the same side. 


* Fountainhall, May 6, 1686. 

+ Ibid. June 15, 1686. 

t+ Van Citters, May 11-21, 1686. Van Citters informed the States that he had 
his intelligence from a sure hand. I willtranscribe part of his narrative. It is 
an amusing specimen of the pyebald dialect in which the Dutch diplomatists of 
that age corresponded. 

“Des konigs missive, boven en behalven den Hoog Commissaris aensprake, 
aen het parlement afgesonden, gelyck dat altoos gebruyckelyckis, waerby Syne 
Majesteyt nu in genere versocht hieft de mitigatie der_rigoureuse ofte sanglante 


514 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


It was plain that even in the Committee of Articles, James could 
not command a majority. He was mortified and irritated at the 
tidings. He held warm and menacing language, and punished some 
of his mutinous servants, in the hope that the rest would take warn- 
ing. Several persons were dismissed from the Council board. Sev- 
eral were deprived of pensions, which formed an important part of 
their income. Sir George Mackenzie of Rosehaugh was the most dis- 
tinguished victim. He had long held the office of Lord Advocate, 
and had taken such a part in the persecution of the Covenanters that 
to this day he holds, in the estimation of the austere and godly peas- 
antry of Scotland, a place not far removed from the unenviable, emi- 
inence occupied by Claverhouse. The legal learning of Mackenzie 
was not profound: but, as a scholar, a wit, and an orator, he stood 
high in the opinion of his countrymen; and his renown had spread 
even to the coffeehouses of London and to the cloisters of Oxford. 
The remains of his forensic speeches prove him to have been a man 
of parts, but are somewhat disfigured by what he doubtless consid- 
ered as Ciceronian graces, interjections which show more art than 
passion, and elaborate amplifications, in which epithet rises above 
epithet in wearisome climax. He had now, for the first time, been 
found scrupulous. He was, therefore, in spite of all his claims on 
the gratitude of the government, deprived of his office. He retired 
into the country, and soon after went up to London for the purpose 
of clearing himself, but was refused admission to the royal presence.* 
While the King was thus trying to terrify the Lords of Articles into 
submission, the popular voice encouraged them to persist. The ut- 
most exertions of the Chancellor could not prevent the national sen- 
timent from expressing itself through the pulpit and the press. One 
tract, written with such boldness and acrimony that no printer dared 
to put it in type, was widely circulated in manuscript. ‘The papers 
which appeared on the other side of the question had much less 
effect, though they were disseminated at the public charge, and 
though the Scottish defenders of the government were assisted by an 


wetten van het Ryck jegens het Pausdom, in het Generale Comite des Articles © 


(soo men het daer naemt) na ordre gestelt en gelesen synde, in *t voteren, den 
Hertog van Hamilton onder anderen klaer uyt seyde dat hy daertoe niet soude 
verstaen, dat hy anders genegen was den konig in allen voorval getrouw te 
dienen volgens het dictamen syner conscientie: ‘t gene reden gaf aen de Lord 
Cancelier de Grave Perts te seggen dat het woort conscientie niets en beduyde, 
en alleen een individuum vagum was, waerop der Chevalier Locquard dan ver- 
der gingh; wil man niet verstaen de betyckenis van het woordt conscientie, soo 
“ay ik eee seggen dat wy meynen volgens de fondamentale wetten van 
et ryck.’ 

Tnere is, in the Hind Let Loose, a curious passage to which I should have 
given no credit but for this despatch of Van Citters. ‘‘ They cannot endure so 
much as to hear of the name of conscience. One that was well acquaint with 
the Council’s humour in this point told a gentleman that was going before 
them, ‘I beseech you, whatever you do, speak nothing of conscience before the 
Lords, for they cannot abide to hear that word.’”’ 

* Fountainhall, May 17, 1686. 


—s vy 


ss 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 515 


English auxiliary of great note, Lestrange, who had been sent down 
to Edinburgh, and lodged in Holyrood House.* 
At Jength, after three weeks of debate, the Lords of Articles came 


toa decision. They proposed merely that Roman Catholics should 


be permitted to worship God in private houses without incurring 


“any penalty; and it soon appeared that, far as this measure was from 


coming up to the King’s demands and expectations, the Estates either 
would not pass it at all, or Hi dae pass it with great restrictions and 
modifications. 

While the contest lasted the finkiety’s in London was intense. Every 
report, every line, from Edinburgh was eagerly devoured. On: day 
the story ran that Hamilton had given way, and that the govern- 
ment would carry every point. Then came intelligence that the op- 
position had rallied and was more obstinate than ever. At the most 
critical moment, orders were sent to the postoffice that the bags 
from Scotland should be transmitted to Whitehall. During a whole 
week, not a single private letter from beyond the Tweed was deliv- 
ered in London. In our age, such an interruption of communica- 
tion would throw the whole island into confusion: but there was 
then so little trade and correspondence between England and Scot- 
land that the inconvenience was probably much smaller than has often 
been occasioned in our own time by a short delay in the arrival of 
the Indian mail. While the ordinary channels of information were 
thus closed, the crowd in the galleries of Whitehall observed with 
attention the countenances. of the King and his ministers. It was 
noticed, with great satisfaction, that, after every express from the 
North, the enemies of the Protestant religion looked more and more 
gloomy. At length, to the general joy, it was announced that the 
struggle was over, that the government had been unable to carry its 
measures, and that the Lord High Commissioner had adjourned the 
Parliament. + 

If James had not been proof to all warning, these events would 
have sufficed to warn him. A few months before this time, the 
most obsequious of English Parliaments had refused to submit to his 
pleasure. But the most obsequious of English Parliaments might be 
regarded as an independent, and even a mutinous assembly when 
compared with any Parliament that had ever sate in Scotland; and 
the servile spirit of Scottish Parliaments was always to be found in 
the highest perfection, extracted and condensed, among the Lords 
of Articles. Yet even the Lords of Articles had been refractory. It 
was plain that all those classes, all those institutions, which, up to 
this year, had been considered as the strongest supports of monarchi- 


* Wodrow, III. x. 3. 
+ Van Citters, tae June 1-11, 4-14, 1686; 'Fountainhall, June 15; Luttrell’s 
Diary, June 2, 16. 


516 : HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


cal power, must, if the King persisted in his insane policy, be reck- 
oned as parts of the strength of the opposition. All these signs, . 
however, were lost upon him. To every expostulation he had one 
answer: he would never give way; for concession had ruined his 
father; and his unconquerable firmness was loudly applauded by the - 
French embassy and by the Jesuitical cabal. 

He now proclaimed that he had been only too gracious when he 
had condescended to ask the assent of the Scottish Estates to his 
wishes. His prerogative would enable him, not only to protect tho:e 
whom he favoured, but to punish those who had crossed him. He 
was confident that, in Scotland, his dispensing power would not be — 
questioned by any court of law. There wasa Scottish Act of Su- | 
premacy which gave to the sovereign such a control over the Church 
as might have satisfied Henry the Eighth. Accordingly Papists 
were admitted in crowds to offices and honours. The Bishop of Dun- 
keld, who, as a Lord of Parliament, had opposed the government, 
was arbitrarily ejected from his see, and a successor was appointed. 
Queensberry was stripped of all his employments, and was ordered 
to remain at Edinburgh till the accounts of the Treasury during his 
administration had been examined and approved.* As the representa- 
tives of the towns had been found the most unmanageable part of 
the Parliament, it was determined to make a revolution in every 
burgh throughout the kingdom, A similar change had recently 
hecn effected in England by judicial sentences: but in Scotland a 
single mandate of the prince was thought sufficient. All elections of 
magistrates and of town councils were prohibited; and the King as- 
sumed to himself the right of fillimg up the chief municipal offices.+ 
In a formal letter to the Privy Council he announced his intention 
to fit up a Roman Catholic chapel in his palace of Holyrood; and he 
gave orders that the Judges should be directed to treat all the Jaws 
against Papists as null, on pain of his high displeasure. He how- 
ever comforted the Protestant Episcopalians by assuring them that, 
thongh he was determined to protect the Roman Catholic Church 
against them, he was equally determined to protect them against 
any encroachment on the part of the fanatics. To this communi. 
cation Perth proposed an answer couched in the most servile terms, 
The Ccuncil now contained many Papists: the Protestant members 
who still had seats had been cowed by the King’s obstinacy and se. 
verity; and only a few faint murmurs were heard. Hamilton threw 
out against the dispensing power some hints which he made haste to 
explain away. Lockhart said that he would lose his head rather than 
sign such a letter as the Chancellor had drawn, but took care to say 
this in a whisper which was heard only by friends. Perth’s words 
were adopted with inconsiderable modifications; and the royal com- — 
mands were obeyed; but a sullen discontent spread through that 


* Fountainhall, June 21, 1686, +Ibid Sept. 16, 1686, 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. ° 517 


minority of the Scottish nation by the aid of which the government 


had hitherto held the majority down.* 

When the historian of this troubled reign turns to Ireland, his task 
becomes peculiarly difficult and delicate. His steps, to borrow the 
fine image used on a similar occasion by a Roman poet, are on the 
thin crust of ashes, beneath which the lava is still glowing. The sev- 
enteenth century has, in that unhappy country, left to the nineteenth 
a fatal heritage of malignant passions. No amnesty for the mutual 


- wrongs inflicted by the Saxon defenders of Londonderry, and by the 


Celtie defenders of Limerick, has ever been granted from the heart 
by either race. To this day a more than Spartan haughtiness alloys 
the many noble qualities which characterise the children of the vic- 
tors, while a Helot feeling, compounded of awe and hatred, is but 
too often discernible in the children of the vanquished. Neither of 
the hostile castes can justly be absolved from blame; but the chief 
blame is due to that short-sighted and headstrong prince who, placed 
in a situation in which he might have reconciled them, employed all 
in his power to inflame their animosity, and at length forced them 
to close in a grapple for life and death. 

The grievances under which the members of his Church laboured 
in Ireland differed widely from those which he was attempting to re- 
move in England and Scotland. The Irish Statute Book, afterwards 
polluted by intolerance as barbarous as that of the dark ages, then 
contained scarcely a single enactment, and not a single stringent 
enactment, imposing any penalty on Papists as such. On our side 
of Saint George’s Channel every priest who received a neophyte into 
the bosom of the Church of Rome was liable to be hanged, drawn, 
and quartered. On the other side he incurred no such danger. A 
Jesuit who landed at Dover took his life in his hand; but he walked 
the streets of Dublin in security. Here no man could hold office, or 
even earn his livelihood as a barrister or a schoolmaster, without pre- 
viously taking the oath of supremacy: but in Ireland a public func- 
tionary was not held to be under the necessity of taking that oath 
unless it were formally tendered to him.+ It therefore did not ex- 
clude from employment any person whom the government wished 
to promote. The sacramental test and the declaration against tran- 
substantiation were unknown: nor was either House of Parliament 
closed by law against any religious sect. 

It might seem, therefore, that the Irish Roman Catholic was in a 


* Fountainhall, Sept. 16; Wodrow, III. x. 3. 

+ The provisions of the Irish Act of Supremacy, 2 Eliz. meres 1, are substan- 
tially the same with those of the English Act of Supremacy, 1 Eliz. chap. 1: but 
the English Act was soon found to be defective; and the defect was supplied by 
a more stringent act, 5 Eliz. chap. 1. Nosuch supplementary law was made in 
Ireland. That the construction mentioned in the text was put on the Irish Act of 
Supremacy, we are told by Archbishop King: State of Ireland, chap. ii, sec. 9 
He calls this construction Jesuitical; but I cannot see 16 in that light. 


7 


518 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


situation which his English and Scottish brethren in the faith might 
wellenvy. In fact, however, his condition was more pitiable and 
irritating than theirs. For though not persecuted as a Roman 
Catholic, he was oppressed as an Irishman. In his country the same 
line of demarcation which separated religions, separated races; and 
he was of the conquered, the subjugated, the degraded race. On 
the same soil dwelt two populations, locally intermixed, morally and 
politically sundered. The difference of religion was by no means 
the only difference, or even the chief difference, which existed be- 
tween them. They sprang from different stocks. They spoke 


. different languages. They had different national characters as 


* 


strongly opposed as any two national characters in Europe. They 
were in widely different stages of civilization. Between two such 
populations there could be little sympathy; and centuries of calamities 
and wrongs had generated a strong antipathy. The relation in which 
the minority stood to the majority resembled the relation in which 
the followers of William the Conqueror stood to the Saxon churls, or 
the relation in which the followers of Cortes stood to the Indians of 
Mexico. 

The appellation of Irish was then given exclusively to the Celts 
and to those families which, though not of Celtic origin, had in the 
course of ages degenerated into Celtic manners. These people, 
probably about a million in number, had, with few exceptions, 
adhered to the .Church of Rome. Among them resided about two 
hundred thousand colonists, proud of their Saxon blood and of their 
Protestant faith.* 

The great preponderance of numbers on one side was more than 


compensated by a great superiority of intelligence, vigour, and _ 


organisation on the other. ‘The English settlers seem to have been, 
in knowledge, energy, and perseverance, rather above than below the 
average level of the population of the mother country. The 
aboriginal peasantry, on the contrary, were in an almost savage state. 
They never worked till they felt the sting of hunger. They were 
content with accommodation inferior to that which, in happier 
countries, was provided for domestic cattle. Already the potato, a 
root which can be cultivated with scarcely any art, industry, or capi- 
tal, and which cannot be long stored, had become the food of the 
common people.t From a people so fed diligence and forethought 
were not to be expected. Even within a few miles of Dublin, the 
traveller, on a soil the richest and most verdant in the world, saw 
with disgust the miserable burrows out of which squalid and half 
naked barbarians stared wildly at him as he passed.{ 


* Political Anatomy of Ireland. 

+ Political Anatomy of Ireland, 1672; Irish Hudibras, 1689; John Dunton’s 
Account of Ireland, 1699. 

~ Clarendon to Rochester, May 4, 1686 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 519 


The aboriginal aristocracy retained in no common measure the 
pride of birth, but had lost the influence which is derived from 
wealth and power. Their lands had been divided by Cromwell 
among his followers. A portion, indeed, of the vast territory which 
he had confiscated had, after the restoration of the House of Stuart, 
been given back to the ancient proprietors. But much. the greater 
part was still held by English emigrants under the guarantee of an 
_Act of Parliament.” This act had: been in force a quarter of a cen- 
tury; and under it mortgages, settlements, sales, and leases without 
number had been made. The old Irish gentry were scattered over 


the whole world. Descendants of Milesian chieftains swarmed in all ~ 


the courts and camps of the Continent. Those despoiled proprietors 
who still remained in their native land, brooded gloomily over their 
losses, pined for the opulence and dignity of which they had been 
deprived, and cherished wild hopes of another revolution. A person 
of this class was described by his countrymen as a gentleman who 
would be rich if justice were done, as a gentleman who had a fine 
estate if he could only get it.* He seldom betook himself to 
any peaceful calling. Trade, indeed, he thought a far more 
disgraceful resource than marauding. Sometimes he turned free- 
booter. Sometimes he contrived, in defiance of the law, to live 
by coshering, that is to say, by quartering himself on the old tenants 
of his family, who, wretched as was their own condition, could not 
refuse a portion of their pittance to one whom they stili regarded as 
their rightful lord. The native gentleman who had been so fortu- 
nate as to keep or regain some of his land too often lived like the 
petty prince of a savage tribe, and indemnified himself for the hu- 
miliations which the dominant race made him suffer by governing 
his vassals despotically, by keeping a rude harem, and by maddening 
or stupefying himself with strong drink.{ Politically he was insig- 
nificant. No statute, indeed, excluded him from the House of 
Commons; but he had almost as little chance of obtainining a seat 
there as a man of colour has of being chosen a Senator of the 
United States. In fact only one Papist had been returned to the 
Irish Parliament since the Restoration. The whole legislative and 
executive power was in the hands of the colonists; and the ascend- 
ency of the ruling caste was upheld by a standing army of seven 
thousand men, on whose zeal for what was called the English interest 
full reliance could be placed.§ 


* Bishop Malony’s Letter to Bishop Tyrrel, March 8, 1689. 

+ Statute 10 & 11 Charles I. chap.i6; King’s State of the Protestants of Ire- 
land, chap. ii. sec. 8. 

¢ King, chap. ii. sec. 8. Miss Edgeworth’s King Corny belongs to a later and 
much more civilised generation; but whoever has studied that admirable por- 
Eee can form some notion of what King Corny’s great-grandfather must have 

een. 

§ King, chap. iii. sec. 2. 


520 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


On a close scrutiny it would have been found that neither the 
Irishry nor the Englishry formed a perfectly homogeneous body. 
The distinction between those Irish who were of Celtic blood, and 
those Irish who sprang from the followers of Strongbow and De 
Burgh, was not altogether effaced. The Fitzes sometimes permitted 
themselves to speak with scorn of the Os and Macs; and the Os and 
Macs sometimes repaid that scorn with aversion. In the preceding 
generation one of the most powerful of the O’Neills refused to pay 
any mark of respect to a Roman Catholic gentleman of old Norman 
descent. ‘‘ They say that the family has been here four hundred 

ears. No matter. I hate the clown as if he had come yesterday.” * 

t seems, however, that such feelings were rare, and that the feud 
which had long raged between the aboriginal Celts and the degenerate 
English had nearly given place to the fiercer feud which separated 
both races from the modern and Protestant colony. 

That colony had its own internal disputes, both national and re- 
ligious. The majority was English; but a large minority came from 
the South of Scotland. One half of the settlers belonged to the 
Establishe@ Church: the other half were Dissenters. But in Ireland 
Scot and Southron were strongly bound together by their common 
Saxon origin. Churchman and Presbyterian were strongly bound 
together by their common Protestantism. All the colonists had a 
common language and a common pecuniary interest. They were 
surrounded by common enemies, and could be safe only by means of 
common precautions and exertions. 'The few penal laws, therefore, 
which had been made in Ireland against Protestant Nonconformists, 
were a dead letter. The bigotry of the most sturdy churchman 
would not bear exportation across St. George’s Channel. As soon as 
the Cavalier arrived in Ireland, and found that, without the hearty 
and courageous assistance of his Puritan neighbours, he and all his 
family would run imminent risk of being murdered by Popish 
marauders, his hatred of Puritanism, in spite of himself, began to 
languish and die away. It was remarked by eminent men of both 
parties that a Protestant who, in Ireland, was called a high Tory 
would in England have been considered as a moderate Whig.t 

The Protestant Nonconformists, on their side, endured, with more 


* Sheridan MS.; Preface to the first volume of the Hibernia Anglicana, 1690; 
Secret Consults of the Romish Party in Ireland, 1689. 

t ‘‘ There was a free liberty of conscience by connivance, though not by the 
law.’’—-King, chap. iii. sec. 1. : 

¢ In a letter to James found among Bishop Tyrrel’s papers, and dated Aug. 14, 
1686, are some remarkable expressions. ‘‘ There are few or none Protestants in 
that country but such as are joined with the Whigs against the common ene- 
my.” And again: ‘‘those that passed for Tories here” (that is in England) 
‘‘ publicly espouse the Whig quarrel on the other side of the water.” Swift said 
the same thing to King William afew years later: ‘‘I remember when I was 
last in England I told the King that the highest Tories we had with us would 
make tolerable Whigs there.’’—Letter concerning the Sacramental Test. 


‘ 


af - 


.' 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 521 


patience than could have been expected, the sight of the most absurd 
ecclesiastical establishment that the world has ever seen. Four Archi- 
bishops and eighteen Bishops were employed in looking after about 
a fifth part of the number of churchmen who inhabited the single 
diocese of London. Of the parochial clergy a large proportion were 
pluralists, and resided at a distance from their cures. There were 
some who drew from their benefices incomes of little less than a thou- 
sand pounds a year, without ever performing any spiritual function. 
Yet this monstrous institution was much less disliked by the Puritans 
settled in Ireland than the Church of England by the English sec- 


' taries. For in Ireland religious divisions were subordinate to national 


divisions; and the Presbyterian, while, as a theologian, he could not 
but condemn the established hierarchy, yet looked on that hierarchy 
with a sort of complacency when he considered it as a sumptuous and 
ostentatious trophy of the victory achieved by the great race from 
which he sprang.* 

Thus the grievances of the Irish Roman Catholic had hardly any- 
thing in common with the grievances of the English Roman Catholic. 
The Roman-Catholic of Lancashire or Staffordshire had only to turn 
Protestant; and he was at once, in all respects, on a Jevel with his 
neighbours: but, if the Roman Catholics of Munster and Connaught 
had turned Protestants, they would still have continued to be a sub- 
ject people. Whatever evils the Roman Catholic suffered in England 
were the effects of harsh legislation, and might have been remedied 
by a more liberal legislation. But between the two populations which 
inhabited Ireland there was an inequality which legislation had not 
caused and could not remove. The dominion which one of those 
populations exercised over the other was the dominion of wealth over 
poverty, of knowledge over ignorance, of civilised over uncivilised 
man. : 

James himself seemed, at the commencement of his reign, to be 
perfectly aware of these truths. The distractions of Ireland, he said, 
arose, not from the differences between the Catholics and the Protes- 
tants, but from the difference between the Irish and the English.+ 
The consequences which he should have drawn from this just proposi- 
tion were sufficiently obvious; but, unhappily for himself and for 
Ireland, he failed to perceive them. 

If only national animosity could be allayed, there could be little 
doubt that religious animosity, not being kept alive, as in England, 
by cruel penal acts and stringent test acts, would of itself fade away. 
To allay a national animosity such as that which the two races in- 
habiting Ireland felt for each other could not be the work of a few 


* The wealth and negligence of the established clergy of Ireland are men- 
tioned in the strongest terms by the Lord Lieutenant Clarendon, a most unex. 
ceptionable witness. 

+ Clarendon reminds the King of this ina letter dated March 14, 1685-6. “Tk 
certainly is,” Clarendon adds, * a most true novion.”’ 


522 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


years, Yet it was a work to which a wise and good prince might 
have contributed much; and James would have undertaken that work 
with advantages such as none of his predecessors or successors pos- 
sessed. Atoncean Englishman and a Roman Catholic, he belonged 
half to the ruling and half to the subject caste, and was therefore 
peculiarly qualified to be a mediator between them. Nor is it diffi- 
cult to trace the course which he ought to have pursued. He ought 
to have determined that the existing sett.ement of landed property 
should be inviolable; and he ought to have announced that dctermi- 
nation in such a manner as effectuaily to quiet the anxiety of the new 
proprietors, and to extinguish any wild hopes which the old proprie- 
tors might entertain. Whether, in the great transfer of estates, in- 
justice had or had not been committed, was immaterial. That trans- 
fer, just or unjust, had taken ‘place so long ago, that to reverse it 
would be to unfix the foundations of society. ‘There must be a time 
of limitation to all rights. After thirty-five years of actual posses- 
sion, after twenty-five years of possession solemnly guaranteed by 
statute, after innumerable leases and releases, mortgages and devises, 
it was too late to search for flaws in titles. Nevertheless something 
might have been done to heal the lacerated feelings and to raise the 
fallen fortunes of the Irish gentry. The colonists were in a thriving 
condition. ‘They had greatly improved their property by building, 
planting, and enclosing. The rents had almost doubled within a few 
years; trade was brisk; and the revenue, amounting to about three 
hundred thousand pounds a year, more than defrayed all the charges 
of the local government, and afforded a surplus which was remitted 
to Engiand. There was no doubt that the next Parliament which 
should meet at Dublin, though representing almost exclusively the 
English interest, would, in return for the King’s promise to maintain 
that interest in.all its legal rights, willingly grant to him a very con- 
siderable sum for the purpose of indemnifying, at least in part, such 
native families as had been wrongfully despoiled. It was thus that 
in our own time the French government put an end to the disputes 
engendered by the most extensive confiscation that ever took place in 
Europe. And thus, if James had been guided by the advice of his 
ost loyal Protestant counsellors, he would have at least greatiy miti- 
gated one of the chief evils which afflicted Ireland.* 

Having done this, he should have laboured to reconcile the hostile 
races to each other by impartially defending the rights and restrain- 
ing the excesses of both. He should have punished with equal sever- 
ity the native who indulged in the license of barbarism, and the 
colonist who abused the strength of civilisation. As far as the legiti- 
mate authority of the crown extended,—and in Ireland it extended 
far.—no man who was qualified for office by integrity and ability ~ 


* Clarendon strongly recommended this course, and was of opinion that the 
Irish Parliament would do its part. See his letter to Ormond, Aug. 28, 1686. 


Me Xk 


4 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 523 


should have been considered as disqualified by extraction or by creed 
for any public trust. It is probable that a Hein Catholic King, 
with an ample revenue absolutely at his disposal, would, without 
much difficulty, have secured the codperation of the Roman Catholic 
prelates and priests in the great work of reconciliation. Much, how- 
ever, must still have been left to the healing influence of time. The 
native race would still have had to learn from the colonists industry 
and forethought, the arts of civilised life, and the language of Eng- 
land. There could not be equality between men who lived in houses 
and men who lived in sties, between men who were fed on bread and 
men who were fed on potatoes, between men who spoke the noble 
tongue of great philosophers and poets, and men who, with a per- 
verted pride, boasted that they could not writhe their mouths into 
chattering such a jargon as that in which the Advancement of Learn- 
ing and the Paradise Lost were written.* Yet it is not unreasonable 
to believe that, if the gentle policy which has been described had been 
steadily followed by the government, all distinctions would gradually 
have been effaced, and that there would now have been no more trace 
of the hostility which has been the curse of Ireland than there is of 
the equally deadly hostility which once raged between the Saxons and 
the Normans in England. 

Unhappily James, instead of becoming a mediator, became the 
fiercest and most reckless of partisans. Instead of allaying the ani- 
mosity of the two populations, he inflamed it to a height before un- 
known. He determined to reverse their relative position, and to 
put the Protestant colonist under the feet of the Popish Celts. To 
be of the established religion, to be of the English blood, was, in his 
view, a disqualification for civil and military employment. He 
meditated the design of again confiscating and again portioning out 
the soil of half the island, and showed his inclination so clearly that 
one class was soon agitated by terrors which he afterwards vainly 
wished to soothe, and the other by cupidity which he afterwards vainly 
wished to restrain. But this was the smallest part of his guilt and 
madness. He deliberately resolved, not merely to give to the aborig- 
inal inhabitants of Ireland the entire dominion of their own country, 
but also to use them as his instruments for setting up arbitrary gov- 
ernment in England. The event was such as might have been fore- 
seen. Thecolonists turned to bay with the stubborn hardihood of 
their race. The mother country justly regarded their cause as her 
own. Then came a desperate struggle for a tremendous stake. 
Everything dear to nations was wagered. on both sides: nor can we 
justly blame either the Irishman or the Englishman for obeying, in 
that extremity, the law of selfpreservation. The contest was terrible, 


* Tt was an O’Neil of great eminence who said it did not become him to writhe 
his mouth to chatter English. Preface to the first volume of the Hibernia Angli- 
cana. 


“a 
} 


but ‘short. The weaker went down. His fate was cruel; and yet 
for the cruelty with which he was treated there was, not indeed a- 
defence, but an excuse: for, though he suffered all that tyranny 
could inflict, he suffered nothing that he would not himself have in- — 
flicted. The effect of the insane attempt to subjugate England by 
means of Ireland was that the Irish became hewers of wood and 
drawers of water to the English. The old proprietors, by their effort 
to recover what they had lost, lost the greater part of what they had 
retained. The momentary ascendency of Popery produced such a 
series of barbarous laws against Popery as made the statute book of 
Ireland a proverb of infamy throughout Christendom. Such were 
the bitter fruits of the policy of James. 

We have seen that one of his first acts, after he became King, was 
to recall Ormond from Ireland. Ormond was the head of the Eng- 
lish interest in that kingdom: he was firmly attached to the Protes- 
tant religion; and his power far exceeded that of an ordinary Lord 
Lieutenant, first, because he was in rank and wealth the greatest of 
the colonists, and secondly, because he was not only the chief of the ~ 
civil administration, but also commander of the forces. The King 
was not at that time disposed to commit the government wholly to 
Irish hands. He had indeed been heard to say that a native viceroy 
would soon become an independent sovereign.* For the present, 
therefore, he determined to divide the power which Ormond had 
possessed, to entrust the civil administration to an English and Protes- 
_tant Lord Lieutenant, and to give the command of the army to an 
Irish and Roman Catholic General. The Lord Lieutenant was Claren- 
don: the General was Tyrconnel. 

Tyrconnel sprang, as has already been said, from one of those de- 
generate families of the Pale which were popularly classed with the 
aboriginal population of Ireland. He sometimes indeed, in his rants, 
talked with Norman haughtiness of the Celtic barbarians:+ but all 
his sympathies were really with the natives. The Protestant colo- 
nists he hated; and they returned his hatred. Clarendon’s inclina- 
tions were very different: but he was, from temper, interest, and 
principle, an obsequious courtier. His spirit was mean; his circum- 
stances were embarrassed; and his mind had been deeply imbued 
with the political doctrines which the Church of England had in 
that age too assiduously taught. His abilities, however, were not con- 
temptible; and, under a good King, he would probably have been a 
respectable viceroy. 

About three quarters of a year elapsed between the recall of Or- 


524 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


* Sheridan MS. among the Stuart papers. I ought to acknowledge the court- 
esy with which Mr. Glover assisted me in my search for this valuable manu- 
script. James appears, from the instructions which he drew up for his son in 
1692, to have retained to the last the notion that Ireland could not without dan- 
ger be entrusted to an Irish Lord Lieutenant. 

+ Sheridan MS, 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 525 


mond and the arrival of Clarendon at Dublin. During that interval 
the King was represented by a board of Lords Justices: but the mili- 
ta,y administration was in Tyrconnel’s hands. Already the designs 
of the court began gradually to unfold themselves. A royal order 
eame from Whitehall for disarming the population. This order 
Tyrconnel strictly executed as respected the English. Though the 
country was infested by predatory bands, a Protestant gentleman 
could scarcely obtain permission to keep a brace of pistols. The 
native peasantry, on the other hand, were suffered to retain their 
weapons.* The joy of the colonists was therefore great, when at 
length, in December 1685, Tyrconnel went to London, and Clarendon 
came to Dublin. But it soon appeared that the government was 
really directed, not at Dublin, but in London. Every mail that 
crossed Saint George’s Channel brought tidings of the boundless in- 
fluence which Tyrconnel exercised on Irish affairs. It was said that 
-he was to be a Marquess, that he was to be a Duke, that he was to 
have the sole command of the forces, that he was to be entrusted 
with the task of remodelling the army and the courts of justice. 
Clarendon was bitterly mortified at finding himself a subordinate 
member of that administration of which he had expected to be the 
head. He complained that whatever he did was misrepresented by 
his detractors, and that the gravest resolutions touching the country 
_ which he governed were adopted at Westminster, made known to the 
public, discussed at coffee houses, communicated in hundreds of pri- 
vate letters, some weeks before one hint had been given to the Lord 
Lieutenant. His own personal dignity, he said, mattered little: but 
it was no light thing that the representative of the majesty of the 
throne should be made an object of contempt to the people.{ Panic 
spread fast among the English, when they found that the viceroy, 
their fellow countryman and fellow Protestant, was unable to extend 
to them the protection which they had expected from him. They 
began to know by bitter experience what it is to be a subject caste. 
They were harassed by the natives with accusations of treason and 
sedition. This Protestant had corresponded with Monmouth: that 
Protestant had said something disrespectful of the King four or five 
years ago, when the Exclusion Bill was under discussion; and the 
evidence of the most infamous of mankind was ready to substantiate 
every charge. The Lord Lieutenant expressed his apprehension that, 
if these practices were not stopped, there would soon be at Dublin a 
reign of terror similar to that which he had seen in London, when 


* Clarendon to Rochester, Jan. 19, 1685-6; Secret Consults of the Romish 
Party in Ireland, 1690. 
+ Clarendon to Rochester, February 27, 1685-6, 
: oon to Rochester and Sunderland, March 2, 1685-6; and to Rochester, 
are i 


: 


526 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


every man held his life and honour at the mercy of Oates and Bed. | 
loe.* . 

Clarendon was soon informed, by a concise despatch from Sunder- 
land, that it had been resolved to make without delay a complete 
change in both the civil and the military government of Ireland, and 
to bring a large number of Roman Catholics instantly into office. 
His Majesty, it was most ungraciously added, had taken counsel on 
these matters with persons more competent to advise him than his 
inexperienced Lord Lieutenant could possibly be.t 

Before this letter reached the viceroy the intelligence which it con- 
tained had, through many channels, arrived in Ireland. The terror 
of the colonists was extreme. Outnumbered as they were by the 
native population, their condition would be. pitiable indeed if the 
native population were to be armed against them with the whole 
hes of the state; and nothing less than this was threatened. The 

nglish inhabitants of Dublin passed each other in the streets with 
dejected looks. -On the Exchange business was suspended. lLand- 
owners hastened to sell their estates for whatever could be got, and 
to remit the purchase money to England. ‘Traders began to call in 
their debts, and to make preparations for retiring from business. The 
alarm soon affected the revenue.{ Clarendon attempted to inspire 
the dismayed settlers with a confidence which he was himself far 
from feeling. He assured them that their property would be held 
sacred, and that, to his certain knowledge, the King was fully de- 
termined to maintain the Act of Settlement which guaranteed their 
right to the soil. But his letters to England were in avery different 
strain. He ventured even to expostulate with the King, and, with- 
out blaming His Majesty’s intention of employing Roman Catholics, 
expressed a strong opinion that the Roman Catholics who might be 
employed ought to be Englishmen.§ 

The reply of James was dry and cold. He declared that he had 
no intention of depriving the English colonists of their land, but that 
he regarded a large portion of them as his enemies, and that, since he 
consented to leave so much money in the hands of his enemies, it 
wus the more necessary that the civil and military administration 
should be in the hands of his friends. || 

Accordingly several Roman Catholics were sworn of the Privy 
Council; and orders were sent to corporaticus to admit Roman 
Catholics to municipal advantages.§{ Many officers ef the army were 
arbitrarily deprived of their commissions and of their bread. It was 


ln i es 


* Clarendon to Sunderland, February 26, 1685-6, 

+ Sunderland to Clarendon, March 11, 1685-6, 

+ Clarendon to Rochester, March 14, 1685-6, 

§ Clarendon to James, March 4, 1685-6. 

1 James to Clarendon, April 6, 1686. 

§ Sunderland to Clarendon, May 22, 1686; Clarendon to Ormond, May 30. 
Clarendon to Sunderland, July 6, 11. 


) Soe 
« 


ag J, 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 527 


to no purpose that the Lord Lieutenant pleaded the cause of some 
whem he knew to be good soldiers and loyal subjects. Among them 
were old Cavaliers, who had fought bravely for monarchy, and who 
bore the marks of honourable wounds. ‘Their places were supplied 
by men who had no recommendation but their religion. Of the new 
Captains and Lieutenants, it was said, some had been cowherds, 
some footmen, some noted marauders: some had been so used to 
wear brogues that they stumbled and shuffled about strangely in 
their military jack boots. Nota few of the officers who were dis- 
carded took refuge in the Dutch service, and enjoyed, four years 
later, the pleasure of driving their successors before them in igno- 
minious rout from the margin of the Boyne.* 

The distress and alarm of Clarendon were increased by news 
which reached him through private channels. Without his approba- 
tion, without his knowledge, preparations were making for arming 
and drilling the whole Celtic population of the country of which he 
was the nominal governor. ‘T'yrconnel from London directed the de- 
sign; and the prelates of the Roman Catholic Church were his agents. 
Every priest had been instructed to prepare an exact list of all his 
male parishioners capable of bearing arms, and to forward it to his 
Bishop.t+ 

It had already been rumoured that Tyrconnel would soon return to 
Dublin armed with extraordinary and independent powers; and the 
rumour gathered strength daily. The Lord Lieutenant, whom no 
insult could drive to resign the pomp and emoiuments of his place, 
declared that he should submit cheerfully to the royal pleasure, and 
approve himself in all things a faithful and obedient subject. He 
had never, he said, in his life, had any difference with Tyrconnel, 
and he trusted that no difference would now arise.{ Clarendon ap- 
pears not to have recollected that there had once been a plot to ruin 
the fame of his innocent sister, and that in that plot Tyrconnel had 
borne a chief part. This is not exactly one of the injuries which 
highspirited men most readily pardon, But, in the wicked court 
where the Hydes had long been pushing their fortunes, such injuries 
were easily forgiven and forgotten, not from magnanimity or Chris- 
tian charity, but from mere baseness and want of moral sensibility. 
In June 1686, Tyrconnel came. His commission authorised him 
only to command the troops; but he brought with him royal instruc- 
tions touching all parts of the administration, and at once took the 
real government of the island into his own hands. On the day after 
his arrival he explicitly said that commissions must be largely given 
to Roman Catholics officers and that room must be made for them by 


* Clarendon to Rochester and Sunderland, June t, 1686; to Rochester, June 
12; King’s State of the Protestants of Ireland, chap. ii. sec. 6, 7; Apology for 
the Protestants of Ireland, 1689. 

+ Clarendon to Rochester, May 15, 1686. 

+Tbid. May 11, 1686. ° 


528 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, ° 


dismissing more Protestants. He pushed on the remodelling of the 
army eagerly and indefatigably. It was indeed the only part of the 
functions of a Commander in Chief which he was competent to 
perform ; for, though courageous in brawls and duels. he knew 
nothing of military duty. At the very first review which he held, 
it was evident to all who were near him that he did not know how 
to draw up aregiment.* To turn Englishmen out and to put Irish- 
men in was, in his view, the beginning and the end of the adminis- 
tration of war. He had the insolence to cashier the Captain of the 
Lord Lieutenant’s own Body Guard; nor was Clarendon aware of 
what had happened till he saw a Roman Catholic, whose face was 
quite unknown to him, escorting the state coach. The change was 
not confined to the officers alone. The ranks were completely 
broken up and recomposed. Four or five hundred soldiers were 
turned out of a single regiment chiefly on the ground that they were 
below the proper stature. Yet the most unpractised eye at once per- 
ceived that they were taller and better made men than their succes- 
sors, whose wild and squalid appearance disgusted the beholders.t 
Orders were given to the new officers that no man of the Protestant 
religion was to be suffered to enlist. The recruiting parties, instead 
of beating their drums for volunteers at fairs and markets, as had 
been the old practice, repaired to places to which the Roman Catholics 
were in the habit of making pilgrimages for purposes of devotion. Ina 
few weeks the General had introduced more than two thousand 
natives into the ranks; and the people about him confidently affirmed 
that by Christmas day not aman of English race would be left in 
the whole army.§ 

On all questions which arose in the Privy Council, Tyrconnei 
showed similar violence and partiality. John Keating, Chief Justice 
of the Common Pleas, a man distingnished by ability, integrity, and 
loyalty, represented with great mildness that perfect equality was all 
that the General could reasonably ask for his own Church. The 
King, he said, evidently meant that no man fit for public trust 
should be excluded because he was a Roman Catholic, and that no 
man unfit for public trust should be admitted because he was a Prot- 
estant. Tyrconnel immediately began to curse and swear. ‘‘I do 
not know what to say to that; I would have all Catholicsin.” || The 
most judicious Irishmen of his own religious persuasion were dis- 
mayed at his rashness, and ventured to remonstrate with him; but 
he drove them from him with imprecations.4] His brutality was 


* Clarendon to Rochester, June 8, 1686. 

+ Secret Consults of the Romish Party in Ireland. 

tClarendon to Rochester, June 26, and July 4, 1686; Apology for the Protes- 
tants of Ireland, 1689. 

§ Clarendon to Rochester, July 4, 22, 1686; to Sunderland, July 6; to the 
King, August 14. 

| Clarendon to Rochester, June 19, 1686. 

TIbid. June 22, 1686, a 


We 


put 


' HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 529 


such that many thought him mad. Yet it was less strange than the 
shameless volubility with which he uttered falsehoods. He had 
long before earned the nickname of Lying Dick Talbot; and, at 
Whitehall, any wild fiction was commonly designated as one of Dick 
Talbot’s truths. He now daily proved that he was well entitled to 
this unenviable reputation. Indeed in him mendacity was almost a 
disease. He would, after giving orders for the dismission of Eng- 
lish officers, take them into his closet, assure them of his confidence 
and friendship, and implore Heaven to confound him, sink him, 
blast him, if he did not take good care of their interests. Some- 
times those to whom he had thus perjured himself learned, before 
the day closed, that he had cashiered them.* 

On his arrival, though he swore savagely at the Act of Settlement, 


and called the English interest a foul thing, a roguish thing, and a 


damned thing, he yet pretended to be convinced that the distribu- 
tion of property could not, after the lapse of so many years, be 
altered.t But when he had been a few weeks at Dublin, his language 
changed. He began to harangue vehemently at the Council board 
on the necessity of giving back the land to the old owners. He had 
not, however, as yet obtained his master’s sanction to this fatal project. 
National feeling still struggled feebly against superstition in the 
mind of James. He was an Englishman: he was an English King ; 
and he could not, without some misgivings, consent to the destruc- 
tion of the greatest colony that England had ever planted. The Eng- 
lish Roman Catholics with whom he was in the habit of taking 
council were almost unanimous in favour of the Act of Settlement. 
Not only the honest and moderate Powis, but the dissolute and head- 
strong Dover, gave judicious and patriotic advice. Tyrconnel could 
hardly hope to counteract at a distance the effect which such advice 
must produce on the royal mind. He determined to plead the 
cause of his caste in person ; and accordingly he set out, at the end 
of August, for England. 

His presence and his absence were equally dreaded by the Lord 
Lieutenant. It was, indeed, painful to be daily browbeaten by an 
enemy: but if was not less painful to know that an enemy was daily 
breathing calumny and evil counsel in the royal ear. Claren- 
don was overwhelmed by manifold vexations. He made a prog- 
ress through the country, and found that he was everywhere treated 
by the Irish population with contempt. The Roman Catho- 
lic priests exhorted their congregations to withhold from him all 
marks of honour. The native gentry, instead of coming to pay 
their respects to him, remained at their houses. The native peasantry 
everywhere sang Celtic ballads in praise of Tyrconnel, who would, 


*Sheridan MS.; King’s State of the Protestants of Ireland, chap. iii. sec. 3, 
sec. 8. There is a most striking instance of Tyrcennel’s impudent mendacity in 
Clarendon’s Letter to Rochester, July 22, 1686. 

+ Clarendon to Rochester, June 8, 1686. 


530 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


they doubted not, soon reappear to complete the humiliation of their 
oppressors.* The viceroy had scarcely returned to Dublin, from his | 
unsatisfactory tour, when he received letters which informed him 
that he had incurred the King’s serious displeasure. His Majesty,—so 
these letters ran,—expected his servants not only to do what he com- 
manded, but to do it from the heart, and with a cheerful countenance. 
The Lord Lieutenant had not, indeed, refused to codperate in the 
reform of the army and of the civil administration: but his coéper- 
ation had been reluctant and perfunctory: his looks had betrayed his 
feelings; and everybody saw that he disapproved of the policy which 
he was employed to carry into effect.+ In great anguish of mind he 
wrote to defend himself; but he was sternly told that his defence 
was not satisfactory. He then, in the most abject terms, declared 
that he would not attempt to justify himself; that he acquiesced in 
the royal judgment, be it what it might; that he prostrated himself 
in the dust; that he implored pardon; that of ail penitents he was the 
most sincere; that he should think it glorious to die in his Sovereign’s 
cause, but found it impossible to live under his Sovereign’s displeas- 
ure. Nor was this mere interested hypocrisy, but, at least in part, 
unaffected slavishness and poverty of spirit; for in confidential let- 
ters, not meant for the royal eye, he bemoaned himself to his family 
in the same strain. He was miserable: he was crush«d: the wrath 
of the King was insupportable: if that wrath could not be mitigated, 
life would not be worth having.{ The poor man’s terror increased 
when he learned that it had been determined at Whitehall to recall 
him, and to appoint, as his successor, his rival and calumniator, Tyr- 
connel.§ Then for a time the prospect seemed to clear: the King 
was in better humour; and during a few days Clarendon flattered 
himself that his brother’s intercession had prevailed, and that the 
crisis was passed. || 

In truth the crisis was only beginning. While Clarendon was trying 
to lean on Rochester, Rochester was unable longer to support him- 
self. As in Ireland the elder brother, though retaining the guard of 
honour, the sword of state, and the title of Excellency, had really 
been superseded by the Commander of the Forces, so in England, 
the younger brother, though holding the white staff, and walking, by 
virtue of his high office, before the greatest hereditary nobles, was 
fast sinking into a mere financial clerk. The Parliament was again 
prorogued to a distant day, in opposition to the Treasurer’s known 
wishes. He was not even told that there was to be another proroga- 
tion, but was left to learn the news from the Gazette. The real 


* Clarendon to Rochester, Sept. 28, and October 2, 1686; Secret Consults of the 
Romish Party in Ireland, 1690. 

+ (Jarendon to Rochester, October 6, 1686. 

+ Clarendon to the King and to Rochester, October 23, 1686. 

§ Clarendon to Rochester, October 29, 30, 1686. 

{ Ibid. November 27, 1686, 


c 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 531 


direction of affairs had passed to the cabal which dined with Sunder- 
land on Fridays. The cabinet met only to hear the despatches from 
foreign courts read; nor did those despatches contain anythin 
which was not known on the Royal Exchange; for all the English En- 
voys had received orders to put into the official letters only the com- 
mon talk of antechambers, and to reserve important secrets for private 
communications which were addressed to James himself, to Sunder- 
land, or to Petre.* Yet the victorious faction was not content. The 
King was assured by those whom he most trusted that the obstinacy 
with which the nation opposed his designs was really to be imputed 
to Rochester. How could the people believe that their Sovereign was 
unalterably resolved to persevere in the course on which he had 
- entered, when they saw at his right hand, ostensibly first in power 
and trust among his counsellors, a man who notoriously regarded 
that course with strong disapprobation? Every step which had been 
taken with the object of humbling the Church of England and of 
elevating the Church of Rome, had been opposed by the Treasurer. 
True it was that, when he had found opposition in vain, he had 
gloomily submitted, nay, that he had sometimes even assiste( in car- 
rying into effect the very plans against which he had most earnestly 
contended. ‘True it was that, though he disliked the Ecclesiastical 
Commission, he had consented to be a Commissioner. True it was 
that he had, while declaring that he could see nothing blamable in 
the conduct of the Bishop of London, voted sullenly and reluctantly 
for the sentence of suspension. But this was not enough. A prince, 
engaged in an enterprise so important and arduous as that on which 
James was bent, had a right to expect from his first minister, not 
unwilling and ungracious acquiescence, but zealous and strenuous 
~codperation. While such advice was daily given to James by those 
in whom he reposed confidence, he received, by the penny post, 
many anonymous letters filled with calumnies against the Lord 
Treasurer. This mode of attack had been contrived by Tyrconnel, 
and was in perfect harmony with every part of his infamous life.+ 
The King hesitated. He seems, indeed, to have really regarded 
his brother in law with personal kindness, the effect of near affinity, 
of long and familiar intercourse, and of many mutual good offices. It 
seemed probable that, as long as Rochester continued to submit him- 
self, though tardily and with murmurs, to the royal pleasure, he 
would continue to be in name prime minister. Sunderland, there- 
fore, with exquisite cunning, suggested to his master the propriety 
of asking the only proof of obedience which it was quite cer- 
tain. that Rochester never would give. At present,—such was the 
language of the artful Secretary,—it was impossible to consult 
with the first of the King’s servants respecting the object nearest 


* Barillon, Sept. 13-23. 1686; Life of James the Second, ii. 99. 
+ Sheridan MS, 


q 
* 


532 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


to the King’s heart. It was lamentable to think that religious 
prejudices should, at such a conjuncture, deprive the govern- 
ment of such valuable assistance. Perhaps those prejudices might — 
not prove insurmountable. Then the deceiver whispered that, to 
his knowledge, Rochester had of late had some misgivings about 
he points in dispute between the Protestants and Catholics.* This 
was enough. The King eagerly caught at the hint. He began to 
flatter himself that he might at once escape from the disagreeable - 
necessity of removing a friend, and secure an able coadjutor for the 
great work which was in progress. He was also elated by the hope 
that he might have the merit and the glory of saving a fellow crea- 
ture from perdition. He seems, indeed, about this time, to have 
been seized with an unusually violent fit of zeal for his religion; and 
this is the more remarkable, because he had just relapsed, after a 
short interval of selfrestraint, into debauchery which ail Christian 
divines condemn as sinful, and which, in an elderly man mar- 
ried to an agreeable young wife, is regarded even by people of 
the world as disreputable. Lady Dorchester had returned from 
Dublin, and was again the King’s mistress. Her return was po- — 
litically of no importance. She had learned by experience the ~ 
folly of attempting to save her lover from the destruction to which — 
he was running headlong. She therefore suffered the Jesuits to 
guide his political conduct; and they, in return, suffered her to 
wheedle him out of money. She was, however, only one of sev- 
eral abandoned women who at this time shared, with his beloved 
Church, the dominion over his mind.| He seems to have deter- 
mined to make some amends for neglecting the welfare of his own 
soul by taking care of the souls of others. He set himself, there- 
fore, to labour, with real good will, but with the good will of a 
coarse, stern, and arbitrary mind, for the conversion of his kins- 
man. Every audience which the Treasurer obtained was spent in 
arguments about the authority of the Church and the worship of 
images. Rochester was firmly resolved not to abjure his religion: but 
he had no seruple about employing in selfdefence artifices as dis- 
creditable as those which had been used against him. He affected to 
speak likea man whose mind was not made up, professed himself 
desirous to be enlightened if he was in error, borrowed Popish books, 
nnd listened with civility to Popish divines. He had several inter- 
views with Leyburn, the Vicar Apostolic, with Godden, the chaplain 
and almoner of the Queen Dowager, and with Bonaventure Giffard, 
a theologian trained to polemics in the schools of Douay. It 
was agreed that there should be a formal disputation between 
these doctors and some Protestant clergymen. The King teld 
Rochester to choose any ministers of the Established Church, with 


* Life of James the Second, ii. 100, 
+ Barillon, Sept. 13-23, 1686; Bonrepaux, June 4, 1687. 


A bab 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 533 


two exceptions. The proscribed persons were Tillotson and Stilling- 
fleet. Tillotson, the most popular preacher of that age, and in man- 
ners the most inoffensive of men, had been much connected with some 
leading Whigs; and Stillingfleet, who was renowned as a consum- 
mate master of all the weapons of controversy, had given still deeper 
offence by publishing an answer to the papers which had been found 
in the strong box of Charles the Second. Mlochester took the two 
royal chaplains who happened to be in waiting. One of them was 
Simon Patrick, whose commentaries on the Bible still form a part of 
theological libraries: the other was Jane, a vehement Tory, who had 
assisted in drawing up that decree by which the University of Oxford 
had solemnly adopted the worst follies of Filmer. The conference 
took place at Whitehall on the thirtieth of November. Rochester, 
who did not wish it to be known that he had even consented to hear 
the arguments of Popish priests, stipulated for secrecy. No audi- 
tor was suffered to be present except the King. The subject dis- 
cussed was the real presence. The Roman Catholic divines took on 
themselves the burden of the proof. Patrick and Jane said little; nor 


- was it necessary that they should say much; for the Karl himself un- 


dertook to defend the doctrine of his Church, and, as was his habit, 
soon warmed with conflict, lost his tersper, and asked with great 
vehemence whether it was expected that he should change his religion 
on such frivolous grounds. Then he remembered how much he was 
risking, began again to dissemble, complimented the disputants on 
their skill and learning, and asked time to consider what had been 
said.* 

Slow as James was, he could not but see that this was mere tri- 
fling. He told Barillon that Rochester’s language was not that of a 
man honestly desirous of arriving at the truth. Still the King did 
not like to propose directly to his brother in law the simple choice, 
apostasy or dismissal: but, three days after the conference, Barillon 
waited on the Treasurer, and, with much circumlocution and many 
expressions of friendly concern, broke the unpleasant truth. ‘‘ Do 
you mean,” said Rochester, bewildered by the involved and ceremo- 
nious phrases in which the intimation was made, ‘‘ that if I do not 
turn Catholic, the consequence will be that I shall lose my place?” 
**T say nothing about consequences,” answered the wary diplomatist. 
*‘T only come as a friend to express a hope that you will take care to 
keep your place.” ‘‘ But surely,” said Rochester, ‘‘the plain meaning 
of all of this is that I must turn Catholic or go out.” He put many 
questions for the purpose of ascertaining whether the communication 
was made by authority, but could extort only vague and mysterious 


* Barilicn, Dee, 2-12, 1686; Burnet, i. 684; Life of James the Second, ii. 100; 
Dodd’s Church History. I haye tried toframe a fair narrative out of these con- 
flicting Materials, It seems clear to me, from Rochester’s own papers, that he 
was on this occasion by no means eo stubborn as he has been represented by 
Burnet and by the biographer of James. 


534 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, 


replies. At last, affecting a confidence which he was far from feel- 


ing, he declared that Barillon must have been imposed upon by idle 
or malicious reports. ‘‘] tellyou,” he said, ‘‘ that the King will not 
dismiss me, and I will not resign. I know him: he knows me; and 
J fear nobody.” ‘The Frenchman answered that he was charmed, 
that he was ravished to hear it, and that his only motive for interfer- 
ing was a sincere anxiety for the prosperity and dignity of his excel- 
Jent friend the Treasurer. And thus the two statesmen parted, each 
flattering himself that he had duped the other. * 

Meanwhile, in spite of all injunctions of secrecy, the news that the 
Lord Treasurer had consented to be instructed in the doctrines of 
Popery had spread fast through London. . Patrick and Jane had 
been seen going in at that mysterious door which led to Chiflinch’s 
apartments. Some Roman Catholics about the Court had, indis- 
creetly or artfully, told all, and more than all, that they knew. The 
Tory churchmen waited anxiously for fuller information. They 


were mortified to think that their leader should even have pretended to - 


waver in his opinion; but they could not believe that he would stoop 
to be arenegade. The unfortunate minister, tortured at once by his 
fierce passions and his low desires, annoyed by the censures of the pub- 
lic, annoyed by the hints which he had received from Barillon, afraid 
of losing character, afraid of losing office, repaired to the royal closet. 
He was determined to keep his place, if it could be kept by any vil- 


lany but one. He would pretend to be shaken in his religious opin-— 


ion, and to be half a convert: he would promise to give strenuous 
support to that policy which he had hitherto opposed; but, if he were 


driven to extremity, he would refuse to change his religion. He be- — 


gan, therefore, by telling the King that the business in which His 
Majesty took so much interest was not sleeping, that Jane and Gif- 
fard were engaged in consulting books on the points in dispute be- 
tween the Churches, and thut, when these researches were over, it 


would be desirable to have another conference. Then hecomplained — 


bitterly that all the town was apprised of what ought to have been 
carefully concealed, and that some persons, who, from their station 
might be supposed to be well informed, reported strange things as to 
the royal intentions. ‘‘It is whispered,” he said, ‘‘ that, if 1 do not 
do as Your Majesty would have me, I shall not be suffered to con- 
tinue in my present station.” The King said, with some general 
expressions of kindness, that it was difficult to prevent people from 
talking, and that loose reports were not to be regarded. These vague 
phrases were not likely to quiet the perturbed mind of the minister. 
His agitation became violent, and he began to plead for his place as 
if he had been pleading. for his life. ‘‘ Your Majesty sees that I 
do all in my power to obey you. Indeed I will do all that I can to 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 535 


-he cried, in an agony of baseness, ‘‘ I will do what I can to believe 
as you would have me. But do not let me be told, while I am try- 
ing to bring my mind to this, that, if I find it impossible to comply, 
I must lose all. For I must needs tell Your Majesty that there are 
other considerations.” ‘‘Oh, you must needs,” exclaimed the King 
with an oath. Fora single word of honest and manly sound, escap- 
ing in the midst of all this abject supplication, was sufficient to move 
his anger. ‘‘I hope, sir,” said poor Rochester, ‘‘ that I do not offen: 
you. Surely Your Majesty could not think well of me if I did not 
say so.”. The King recollected himself, protested that he was not 
offended, and advised the Treasurer to disregard idle rumours, and 
to confer again with Jane and Giffard.* 

After this conversation a fortnight elapsed before the decisive blow 
fell. That fortnight Rochester passed in intriguing and imploring. 
He attempted to interest in his favour those Roman Catholics who 
had the greatest influence at court. He could not, he said, renounce 
his own religion: but, with that single reservation, he would do all 
that they could desire. Indeed if he might only keep his place, they 
should find that he could be more useful to them as a Protestant than 
as one of their own communion.{+ His wife, who was on a sick bed, 
had already, it was said, solicited the honour of a visit from the much 
injured Queen, and had attempted to work on her Majesty's feelings of 
compassion.t But the Hydes abased themselves in vain. Petre re- 
garded them with peculiar malevolence, and was bent on their ruin.§ 
On the evening of the seventeenth of December the Earl was called 
into the royal closet. James was unusually discomposed, and even 
shed tears. The occasion, indeed, could not but call up some recol- 
lections which might well soften a hard heart. He expressed his re- 
gret that his duty made it impossible for him to indulge his private 
partialities. It was absolutely necessary, he said, that those who 
had the chief direction of his affairs should partake his opinions 
and feelings. He owned that he had very great personal obligations 
to Rochester, and that no fault could be found with the way in 
which the financial business had lately been done: but the office of 
Lord Treasurer was of such high importance, that, in general, it 
ought not to be entrusted to a single person; and could not safely be 
entrusted by a Roman Catholic King to a person zealous for the 
Church of England. ‘‘ Think better of it, my Lord,” he continued. 
““Read again the papers from my brother’s box. I will give ycu a 
little more time for consideration, if you desire it.” Rochester saw 
that all was over, and the wisest course left to him was to make his 
retreat with as much moneyand as much credit as possible. - He suc- 
ceeded in both objects. He obtained a pension of four thousand 


* From Rochester's Minutes, Dec. 4, 1686. ¢ Burnet, i. C84. ns 
May 25, 


+ Barillon, Dec. 20-30, 1686, § Bonrepaux, i 1687. 
u 


? 


336 TWSTORY OF ENGLAND. ~ 


pounds a year for two lives on the post office. He had made great 

sums out of the estates of traitors, and carried with him in particular 

Grey’s bond for forty thousand pounds, and a grant of all the estate 

which the crown had in Grey’s extensive property.* No person had 

ever quitted office on terms so advantageous. To the applause of the 

sincere friends of the Established Church Rochester had, indeed, 

very slender claims. ‘To save his place he had sate in that tribunal 

which had been illegally created for the purpose of persecuting her, 

To save his place he had given a dishonest vote for degrading one of 

her most eminent ministers, had affected to doubt her orthodoxy, had 

listened with the outward show of docility to teachers who called her 

schismatical and heretical, and had offered to codperate strenuously 
with her deadliest enemies in their designs against her. The highest 

praise to which he was entitled was this, that he had shrunk from 
the exceeding wickedness and baseness of publicly abjuring, for 
lucre, the religion in which he had been brought up, which he be- 

lieved to be true, and of which he had Jong made an ostentatious 

profession. Yet he was extolled by the great body of Churechmen 

as if he had been the bravest and purest of martyrs. The Old and 
New Testaments, the Martyrologies of Eusebius and of Fox, were 
ransacked to find parallels for his heroic piety. He was Daniel in 
the den of Lions, Shadrach in the fiery furnace, Peter in the dun- 
geon of Herod, Paul at the bar of Nero, Ignatius in the amphithe- 
atre, Latimer at the stake. Among the many facts which prove that 
the standard of honour and virtue among the public men of the age_ 
was low, the admiration excited by Rochester’s constancy is, perhaps, 
‘the most decisive. 

In his fall he dragged down Clarendon. On the seventh of Janu- 
ary 1687, the Gazette announced to the people of London that the 
Treasury was put into commission. On the eighth arrived at Dublin 
a despatch formally signifying that in a month Tyrconnel would 
assume the government of Ireland. It was not without great difli- 
culty that this man had surmounted the numerous impediments 
which stood in the way of his ambition. It was well known that 
the extermination of the English colony in Ireland was the object on 
which his heart was set. He had, therefore, to overcome some scru- 
ples in the royal mind. He had to surmount the opposition, not 
merely of the moderate and respectable heads of the Roman Catholic 
body, but even of several members of the Jesuitical cabal.¢ Sun- 


Dec. 30, ‘ 
* Rochester's Minutes, Dec. 19, 1686; Barillon, — 1686-7; Burnet, i. 685; 


an. Y, 
Life of James the Second, ii. 102; Treasury Warrant Book, December 29, 1686. 


+ Bishcp Malony in a letter to Bishop Tyrrel says, *‘ Never a Catholic or other — 
English will ever think or make a-step, nor suffer the King to make a step for 
your restauration, but leave you as you were hitherto, and leave your enemies 
over your heads; noris there any Englishman. Catholie or other, of what quality 
or degree soever alive, that will stick to sacrifice.all Ireland for to save the least 


i: 


- met 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 537 


-derland shrank from the thought of an Irish revolution, religious, 
political and social. To the Queen Tyrconnel was personally an 
object of aversion. Powis was therefore suggested as the man best 
qualified for the viceroyalty. He was of illustrious birth: he was a 
sincere Roman Catholic; and yet he was generally allowed by candid 
Protestants to be an honest man and a good Englishman. All oppo- 
sition, however, yielded to Tyrconnel’s energy and cunning. He 
fawned, bullied and bribed indefatigably. Petre’s help was secured 
by flattery. Sunderland was plied at once with promises and 
menaces. An immense price was offered for his support, no less 
than an annuity of five thousand pounds a year from Ireland, re- 
deemable by payment of fifty thousand pounds down. If this pro- 
posal were rejected, ‘I'yrconnel threatened to let the King know that 
the Lord President had, at the Friday dinners, described His Majesty 
asa fool who must be governed either by a woman or by a priest. 
Sunderland, pale and trembling, offered to procure for Tyrconnel 
supreme military command, enormous appointments, anything but 
the viceroyalty; but all compromise was rejected; and it was neces- 
sary to yield. Mary of Modena herself was not free from suspicion 
of corruption. There was in London a renowned chain of pearls 
which was valued at ten thousand pounds. It had belonged to 
Prince Rupert; and by him it had been left to Margaret Hughes, a 
courtesan who, towards the close of his life, had exercised a bound- 
less empire over him. Tyrconnel loudly boasted that with this chain 
he had purchased the support of the Queen. There were those, 
however, who suspected that this story was one of Dick Talbot’s 
truths, and that it had no more foundation than the calumnies which, 
twenty-six years before, he had invented to blacken the fame of 
Anne Hyde. To the Roman Catholic courtiers generally he spoke of the 
uncertain tenure by which they held offices, honours and emoluments. 
The King might die tomorrow, and might leave them at the mercy 
of a hostile government and a hostile rabble. But, if the old faith 
could be made dominant in Ireland, if the Protestant interest in that 
country could be destroyed, there would still be, in the worst event, 
an asylum at hand to which they might retreat, and where they 
might either negotiate or defend themselves with advantage. A 
Popish priest was hired with the promise of the mitre of Waterford 
to preach at Saint James’s against the Act of Settlement; and his 
sermon, though heard with deep disgust by the English part of the 
auditory, was not without its effect. The struggle which patriotism 
had for a time maintained against bigotry in the royal mind was at 
anend. ‘‘ There is work to be done inIreland,” said James, ‘‘ which 
no Englishman will do.” * 

All obstacles were at length removed; and in February 1687, 


interest of his own in England, and would as willingly see all Ireland over in» 
habited by English of whatsoever religion as by the Trish.” 
*The best account of these transactions is in the Sheridan MS. 


a a , 
iia 


538 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


Tyrconnel began to rule his native country with the power and 
appointments “of Lord Lieutenant, but with the humbler title of 
Lord Deputy. 

His arrival spread dismay through the whole English population. 
Clarendon was accompanied, or speedily followed, across Saint 
George’s Channel, by a large proportion of the most respectable 
inhabitants of Dublin, gentlemen, tradesmen, and artificers. It was 
said that fifteen hundred families emigrated in a few days. The 
panic was not unreasonable. The work of putting the colonists 
down under the feet of the natives went rapidly on. In a short 
time almost every Privy Councillor, Judge, Sheriff, Mayor, Alder- 
man, and Justice of the Peace was a Celt and a Roman Catholic. 
It seemed that things would soon be ripe for a-general election, and 
that a House of Commons bent on abrogating the Act of Settlement 
would easily be assembled.* Those who had lately been the lords of 
the island now cried out in the bitterness of their souls, that they 
had become a prey and a laughing-stock of their own serfs and 
menials; that houses were burnt and cattle stolen with impunity; 
that the new soldiers roamed the country, pillaging, insulting, ravish- 
ing, maiming, tossing one Protestant in a blanket, tying up another 
by the hair and scourging him; that to appeal to the iaw was vain; 
that Irish Judges, Sheriffs, juries, and witnesses were all in a league 
to save Irish criminals; and that, even without an Act of Parliament, 
the whole soil would soon change hands, for that, in every action of 
ejectment tried under the administration of Tyrconnel, judgment 
had been given for the native against the Englishman.t+ 

While Clarendon was at Dublin the Privy Seal had been in the 
hands of Commissioners. His friends hoped that it would, on his 
return to London, be again delivered to him. But the King, and the 
Jesuitical cabal had determined that the disgrace of the Hydes should 
be complete. Lord Arundell of Wardour, a Roman Catholic, 
obtained the Privy Seal. Bellasyse, a Roman Catholic, was made 
First Lord of the Treasury; and Dover, another Roman Catholic, 
had aseat at the board. The appointment of a ruined gambler to 
such a trust would alone have sufficed to disgust the public. The 
dissolute Etherege, who then resided at Ratisbon as English envoy, 
could not refrain from expressing, with a sneer, his hope that his 
old boon companion, Dover, would keep the King’s money better 
than his own. In order that the finances might not be ruined by 
incapable and inexperienced Papists, the obsequious, diligent and 
silent Godolphin was named a Commissioner of the Treasury, but 
continued to be Chamberlain to the Queen. t 


* Sheridan MS.; Oldmixon’s Memoirs of Ireland; King’ s State of the Brotes- 
tants of Ir eland, particularly chapter iii.; Apology for the Protestants of 
Treland, 1689. 

t Secret Consults of the Romish Party in Ireland, 1690. 

+ London Gazette, Jan. 6, and March 14, 16 7; Evelyn's Diary, March 10, 
Etherege’s letter to ‘Dover is in the British Museum. 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 539 


The dismission of the two brothers is a great epoch in the reign of 
James. From that time it was clear that what he really wanted was 
not liberty of conscience for the members of his own church, but 
liberty to persecute the members of other churches. Pretending to 
abhor tests, he had himself imposed a test. He thought it hard, he 
thought it monstrous, that able and loyal men should be excluded 
from the public service solely for being Roman Catholics. Yet he had 
himself turned out of office a Treasurer, whom he admitted to be both 
loyaland able, solely for being a Protestant. The cry was that a general 
proscription was at hand, and that every public functionary must 
make up his mind to lose his soul or to lose his place.* Who indeed 
could hope to stand where the Hydes had fallen? They were the 
brothers in law of the King, the uncles and natural guardians of his 
children, his friends from early youth, his steady adherents in ad- 
versity and peril, his obsequious servants since he had been on the 
throne. ‘Their sole crime was their religion; and for this crime they 

had been discarded. In great perturbation men began to look round 
for help; and soon all eyes were fixed on one whom a rare concur- 
‘rence both of personal qualities and of fortuitous circumstances 
pointed out as the deliverer. 


CHAPTER VII. 


Tue place which William Henry, Prince of Orange Nassau, occu- 
pies in the history of England and of mankind is so great that it may 
be desirable to portray with some minuteness the strong lineaments 
of his character. + 

He was now in his thirty-seventh year. But both in body and in 
mind he was older than other men of the sameage. Indeed it might 
be said that he had never been young. His external appearance is 
almost as well known to us as to his own captains and counsellors. 
Sculptors, painters, and medallists exerted their utmost skill in the 
work of transmitting his features to posterity; and his features were 
such that no artist could fail to seize, and such as, once seen, could 
never be forgotten. His name at once calls up before us a slender 
,and feeble frame, a lofty and ample forehead, a nose curved like the 


* “ Pare che gli animi sono inaspriti della voce che corre peril popolo, d’esser cac- 
ciato il detto ministro per non essere Cattolico, percid tirarsi al esterminio de’ 
Protestanti.”"—Adda, (“= 1687. 

+The chief materials from which I have taken my description of the Prince 
of Orange will be found in Burnet’s History, in Temple’s and Gourville’s Me- 
moirs, in the Negotiations of the Counts of Estrades and Avaux, in Sir George 
Downing’s Letters to Lord Chancellor Clarendon, in Wagenaar’s voluminous 
History, in Van Kamper’s Karakterkunde der Vaderlandsche Geschiedenis, and, 
above all, in William’s own confidential correspondence, of which the Duke of 
Portland permitted Sir James Mackintosh to take a copy. 


540 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


beak of an eagle, an eye rivalling that of an eagle in brightness and 
keenness, a thoughtful and somewhat sullen brow, a-firm and some- 
what peevish mouth, a cheek, pale, thin, and deeply furrowed by 
sickness and by care. That pensive, severe, and solemn aspect could 
scarcely have belonged to a happy or a good-humoured man. But 
it indicates in a manner not to be mistaken capacity equal to the 
most arduous enterprises, and fortitude not to be shaken by re- 
verses or- dangers. 

Nature had largely endowed William with the qualities of a great 
ruler; and education had developed those qualities in no common 
degree. With strong natural sense, and rare force of will, he found 
himself, when first his mind began to open, a fatherless and mother- 
less child, the chief of a great but depressed and disheartened party, 
and the heir to vast and indefinite pretensions, which excited the 
dread and aversion of the oligarchy then supreme in the United 
Provinces. The common people, fondly attached during three gen- 
erations.to his house, indicated, whenever they saw him, in a manner 
not to be mistaken, that they regarded him as their rightful head. 
The able and experienced ministers of the republic, mortal enemies 
of his name, came every day to pay their feigned civilities to him, 
and to observe the progress of his mind. The first movements of 
his ambition were carefully watched: every unguarded word uttered 
by him was noted down; nor had he near him any adviser on whose 
judgment reliance eonld be placed. He was scarcely fifteen years 
old when all the domestics who were attached to his interest, or who 
enjoyed any share of his confidence, were removed from under his 
roof by the jealous government. He remonstrated with energy be- 
yond his years, but in vain. Vigilant observers saw the tears more 
than once rise in the eyes of.the young state prisoner. His health, 
naturally delicate, sank for a time under the emotions which his 
desolate situation had produced. ‘ Such situations bewilder and un- 
nerve the weak, but call forth all the strength of the strong. Sur- 
rounded by snares in which an ordinary youth would have perished, 
William learned to tread at once warily and firmly. Long before he 
reached manhood, he knew how to keep secrets, how to baffle curios- 
ity by dry and guarded answers; how to conceal all passions under 
the same show of grave tranquillity. Meanwhile he made little pro- 
ficiency in fashionable or literary accomplishments. The manners of 
the Dutch nobility of that age wanted the grace which was found in 
the highest perfection among the gentlemen of France, and which, 
in an inferior degree, embellished the Court of England; and his 
manners were altogether Dutch. Even his countrymen thought him 
blunt. To foreigners he often seemed churlish. In his intercourse 
with the world in gencral he appeared ignorant or negligent of those 
arts which double the value of a favour and take away the sting of a 
refusal. He was little interested in letters or science. The discover- 
ies of Newton and Liebnitz, the poems of Dryden and Boileau, were 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 541 


unknown to him. Dramatic performances tired him, and be was 


Zlad to turn away from the stage and to talk about public affairs, 
while Orestes was raving, or while Tartuffe was pressing Elmira’s 


hand. He had indeed some talent for sarcasm, and not seldom em- 


ployed, quite unconsciously, a natural rhetoric, quaint, indeed, but 
Vigorous, and original. He did not, however, in the least affect the 
character of a wit or of an orator. His attention had been confined 
to those studies which form strenuous and sagacious men of business. 
From a child he listened with interest when high questions of alli- 
ance, finance, and war were discussed. Of geometry he learned as 
much as was necessary for the construction of a ravelin or a horn- 
work.. Of languages, by the help of a memory singularly powerful, 
he learned as much as was necessary to enable him to comprehend 
and answer without assistance everything that was said to him and 
every letter which he received. The Dutch was his own tongue. 
With the French he was not iess familiar. He understood Latin, 
Italian, and Spanish. He spoke and wrote English and German in. 
elegantly, it is true, and inexactly, but fluently and intelligibly. No 
qualification could be more important to a man whose life was to be 
passed in organising great alliances, and in commanding armies as- 
sembled from different countries. 

One‘class of philosophical questions had been forced on his atten- 
tion by circumstances, and seems to have interested him more than 
might have been expected from his generai character. Among the 
Protestants of the United Provinces, as among the Protestants of our 


island, there were two religious parties which almost exactly coin- 


cided with two great political parties. The chiefs of the municipal oli- 
garchy were Arminians, and were commonly regarded by the multi- 
tude as little better than Papists. The princes of Orange had generally 
been the patrons of the Calvinistic divinity, and owed no small part 
of their popularity to their zeal for the doctrines of election and 
final perseverance, a zeal not always enlightened by knowledge or 
tempered by humanity. William had been carefully instructed from 
a child in the theological system to which his family was attached; 
and he regarded that system with even more than the partiality 
Which men generally feel for a hereditary faith. He had ruminated 
on the great enigmas which had been discussed in the Synod of Dort, 


- and had found in the austere and inflexible logic of the Genevese 


school something which suited his intellect and his temper. That 
example of intolerance indeed which some of his predecessors had 
set he never imitated. For all persecution he felt a fixed aversion 
which he avowed, not only where the avowal was obviously politic, 
but on occasions where it seemed that his interest would have been pro- 
moted by dissimulation or by silence. His theological opinions, how 
ever, were even more decided than those of his ancestors. The tenet 
of predestination was the keystone of his religion. He often declared 
that, if he were to abandon that tenet, he must abandon with it all 


M. E. 1.—18 


542 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


belief in a superintending Providence, and must become a mere Epi- 
curean. Except in this single instance, all the sap of his vigorous 
mind was early drawn away from the speculative to the practical. 
The faculties which are necessary for the conduct of important busi- 
ness ripened in him at a time of life when they have scarcely begun 
to blossom in ordinary men. Since Octavius the world had seen no 
such instance of precocious statesmanship. Skilful diplomatists 
were surprised to hear the weighty observations which at seventeen 
the Prince made on public affairs, and still more surprised to see a 
lad, in situations in which he might have been expected to betray 
strong passion, preserve a composure as imperturbable as their own. 
At eighteen he sate among the fathers of the commonwealth, grave, 
discreet, and judicious as the oldest among them. At twenty-one, in 
a day of gloom and terror, he was placed at the head of the admin- 
istration. At twenty-three he was renowned throughout Europe as 
a soldier and a politician. He had put domestic factions under his 
feet: he was the soul of a mighty coalition; and he had contended 
with honour in the field against some of the greatest generals of 
the age. 

His personal tastes were those rather of a warrior than of a states. 
man; but he, like his great-grandfather, the silent prince who 
founded the Batavian commonwealth, occupies a far higher«place 
among statesmen than among warriors. The event of battles, in- 
deed, is not an unfailing test of the abilities of a commander; and it 
would be peculiarly unjust to apply this test to William; for it was 
his fortune to be almost always opposed to captains who were consum- 
mate masters of their art, and to troops far superior in discipline to 
hisown. Yet there is reason to believe that he was by no means 
equal, as a general in the field, to some who ranked far below him in 
intellectual powers. To those whom he trusted he spoke on this 
subject with the magnanimous frankness of a man who had done 
great things, and could well afford to acknowledge some deficiencies. 
He had never, he said, served an apprenticeship to the military pro- 
fession. He had been placed, while still a boy, at the head of an 
army. Among his officers there had been none competent to instruct 
him. His own blunders and their consequences had been his only 
lessons. ‘‘I would give,” he once exclaimed, ‘‘a good part of my 
estates to have served a few campaigns under the Prince of Condé 
before I had to command against him.” It is not improbable that 
the circumstance which prevented William from attaining any emi- 
nent dexterity in strategy may have been favourable to the general 
vigour of his intellect. If his battles were not those of a great tac- 
lician, they entitled him to be called a great man. No disaster could 
for one moment deprive him of his firmness or of the entire posses- 
sion of all his faculties. His defeats were repaired with such mar- 
vellous celerity that, before his enemies had sung the Te Deum, he 
was again ready for the conflict; nor did his adverse fortune ever de- 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 543 


prive him of the respect and confidence of his soldiers. That respect 
and contidence he owed in no small measure to his personal courage 
Courage, in the degree which is necessary to carry a soldier without 
disgrace through a campaign, 1s possessed, or might, under proper 
training, be acquired, by the great majority of men. But courage 
like that of William is rare indeed. He was proved by every test: 
by war, by wounds, by painful and depressing maladies, by raging 
seas, by the imminent and constant tisk of assassination, a risk 
which has shaken very strong nerves, a risk which severely tried 
even the adamantine fortitude of Cromwell. Yet none could. evei 
discover what that thing was which the Prince of Orange feared. 
His advisers could with difficulty induce him to take any precaution 
against the pistols and daggers of conspirators.*° Old sailors were 
amazed at the composure whick he preserved amidst roaring breakers 
on a perilous coast. In battle tis bravery made him conspicuous 
even among tens of thousands of brave warriors, drew forth the 
generous applause of hostile armies, and was scarcely ever questioned 
even by the injustice of hostile factions. During his first campaigns 
he exposed himself like a man who sought for death, was always 
- foremost in the charge and last in the retreat, fought sword in hand, 
in the thickest press, and with a musket ball in his arm and the 
blood streaming over his cuirass, still stood his ground and waved 
his hat under the hottest fire. His friends adjured him to take more 
care of a life invaluable to his country; and his most illustrious an 
tagonist, the great Condé, remarked, after the bloody day of Seneff, 
that the Prince of Orange had in ali things borne himself like an old 
' general, except in exposing himself iike a young soldier. William 
denied that he was guilty of temerity. It was, he said, from a sense 
of duty and on a cool calculation of what the public interest required, 
that he was always at the post of danger. The troops which hecom- 
manded had been little used to war, and shrank from a close 
_ encounter with the veteran soldiery of France. It was necessary 
that their leader should show them how battles were to be won. 
Ard in truth more than one day which had seemed hopelessly’ lost 
was retrieved by the hardihood with which he rallied his broken bat- 
talions and cut down the cowards who set the example of flight. 
_ Sometimes, however, it seemed that he had a strange pleasure in 
venturing his person. It was remarked that his spirits were never so 


_ * William was earnestly entreated by his friends, after the peace of Ryswick, 
to speak seriously to the French ambassador about the schemes of assassination 
which the Jacobites of Saint Germain’s were constantly contriving. The cold 
magnanimity with which these invimations of danger were received is singularly 
characteristic. To Bentinck, who had sent from Paris very alarming intell- 
gence, William merely replied at the end of a long letter of business,—‘‘ Pour 
les assasins je je juy en ay pas voulu parler, croiant que c’étoit au desous de 


moy.” May =e 1608. I keep the original orthography, if it is to be so called, 


Bt 


544 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


high and his manners never so gracious and easy as amidst the tu- 
mult and carnage of a battle. Even in his pastimes he- liked. the 
excitement of danger. Cards, chess, and billiards gave him no 
pleasure. The chase was his favourite recreation; and. he loved it 
most when it was most hazardous. His leaps were sometimes such 
that his boldest companions did not like to follow him. He seemed 
to have thought the most hardy field sports of England effeminate, 
and to have pined in the great park of Windsor for the game which 
he had been used to drive to bay in the forests of Guelders, wolves, 
and wild boars, and huge stags with sixteen antlers.* 

The audacity of his spirit was the more remarkable because his 
physical organization was unusually delicate. From achild he had been 
weak and sickly. In the prime of manhood his complaints had been 
aggravated by a severe attack of smallpox. He was asthmatic and 
consumptive. His slender frame was shaken by a constant hoarse 
eough. He could not sleep unless his head was propped by several 
pillows, and could scarcely draw his breath in any but the purest 
air. Cruel headaches frequently tortured him. Exertion soon 
fatigued him. The physicians constantly kept up the hopes of his 
enemies by fixing some date beyond which, if there were anything 
certain in medical science, it was impossible that his broken consti- 
tution could hold out. Yet, through a life which was one long dis- 
ease, the force of his mind never failed, on any great occasion, to 
bear up his suffering and languid body. 

He was born with violent passions and quick sensibilities: 
but the strength of his emotions was not suspected by the 
world. From the multitude his joy and his grief, his affection and 
his resentment, were hidden by a phlegmatic serenity, which made 
him pass for the reost coldblooded of mankind. 'Those who brought 
him good news could seldom detect any sign of pleasure. Those 
who saw him after a defeat looked in vain for any trace of vexation. 
He praised and reprimanded, rewarded and punished, with the stern 
tranquillity of a Mohawk chief: but those who knew him well and 
saw him near were aware that under all this ice a fierce fire was con- 
stantly burning. It was seldom that anger deprived him of power 
over himself. But when he was really enraged the first outbreak of 
his passion was terrible. It was indeed scarcely safe to approach 
him. On these rare occasions, however, as soon as he regained his 
selfcommand, he made such ample reparation to those whom he had 


*From Windsor he wrote to Bentinck, then ambassador at Paris. ‘“J’ay pris 

avant hier un cerf dans la forest avec les chains du Pr. Op peu. et ay fait un 
arch 2 

assez jolie chasse, autant que ce vilain paiis le permest.”’ re eh 1698. The 
il 1, 


Apri 
spelling is bad, but not worse than Napoleon’s. William wrote in better humour 
from Loo. ‘‘Nous avons pris deux gros cerfs, le premier dans peter qui 


est un des plus gros que je sache avoir jamais pris, il porte seize.” — ec 
OV, 


Dashes 


169% 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 645 


wronged as tempted them to wish that he would go into a fury again. 
His affection was as impetuous as his wrath. Where he loved, he 
loved with the whole energy of his strong mind. When death 
separated him from what he loved, the few who witnessed his 
agonies trembled for his reason and his life. To a very small circle 
of intimate friends, on whose fidelity and secrecy he could absolutely 
depend, he was a different man from the reserved and stoical William 
whom the multitude supposed to-be destitute of human feelings. He 
was kind, cordial, open, even convivial and jocose, would sit at table 
many hours, and would bear his full share in festive conversation. 
Highest ia his favour stood a gentleman of his household named 
Bentinck, sprung from a noble Batavian race, and destined to be the 
founder of one of the great patriciay housesof England. The fidelity 
of Bentinck had been tried by no common test. It was while the 
United Provinces were struggling for existence against the French 
power that the young Prince on whom all their hopes were fixed was 
seized by the smallpox. That disease had been fatal to many mem- 
bers of his family, and at first wore, in his case, a peculiarly malig 
nant aspect. The public consternation was great. The streets of 
the Hague were crowded from daybreak to sunset by persons anxiously 
asking how His Highness was. At length his complaint took a 
favourable turn. His escape was attributed partly to his own 
singular equanimity, and partly to the intrepid and indefatigable 
friendship of Bentinck. From the hands of Bentinck alone William 
took foodand medicine. By Bentinck alone William was lifted from 
his bed and laid down init. ‘* Whether Bentinck slept or not while 
I was ill,” said William to Temple, with great teaderness, ‘‘ 1 know 
not. But this I know, that, through sixteen days and nights, I never 
once culled for anything but that Bentinck was instantly at my side.” 
Before the faithful servant had entirely performed bis task, he had 
himself caught the contagion. Still, however, he bore up against 
drowsiness and fever till his master was pronounced convalescent. 
Then, at length, Bentinck asked leave to go home. It was time: 
for his limbs would no longer support him. He wasin great danger, 
but recovered, and as soon as he left his bed, hastened to the army, 
where, during many sharp campaigns, he was ever found, as he had 
been in peril of a different kind, close to William’s side. 

Such was the origin of a friendship as warm and pure as any that 
aucient or modern history records. The descendants of Bentinck 
still preserve raany letters written by William to their ancestor : and 
it is not too much to say that no person who has not studied those 
jetters can form a correct notion of the Prince’s character. He, 
-whom even his admirers generally accounted the most distant and 
frigid of men, here forgets all distinctions of rank, and pours out all 
his thoughts with the ingenuousness of a schoolboy. He imparts 
without reserve secrets of the highest moment. He explains with 
perfect simplicity vast designs affecting all the governments of 


546 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


Europe. Mingled with bis communications on such subjects are 
other communications of a very different, but perhaps not of a less 
interesting kind. All his adventures, all his personal feelings, his 
long runs “after enormous stags, his car ousals on Saint Hubert’s day, 
the “erowth of his plantations, the failure of his melons, the state of 
his stud, his wish to procure an easy pad nag for his wife, his vexa- 
tion at learning that one of his household, after ruining a girl of 
good family, refused to marr y her, his fits of sea sickness, his coughs, 
his headaches, his devotional moods, his gratitude for the divine pro- 
tection after a great escape, his struggles to submit himself to the 
divine will after a gisaster, are described with an admirable garru- 
lity hardly to have been expected from the most discreet and sedate 
statesman of the age. Still more remarkable is the careless effusion 
of his tenderness, and the brotherly interest which he takes in his 
friend’s domestic felicity. When an heir is born to Bentinck, ‘‘ he 
will live, I hope,” says William, ‘‘to be as good a fellow as you are; 
and if I should have a son, our children will love each other, I hope, 
as we have done.”* Through life he continues to regard the little 
Bentincks with paternal kindness. He calls them by endearing 
diminutives; he takes charge of them in their father’s absence, will 
not suffer them to go on a hunting party, where there would be risk 
of a push from a stag’s horn, or to sit up late at night at a riotous 
supper.t When their mother is taken ill in her husband’s absence, 
William, in the midst of business of the highest moment, finds time 
to send off several expresses in one day with short notes containing 
intelligence of her state.{ On one occasion, when she is pronounced 
out of danger after a severe attack, the prince breaks forth into fer- 
vent expressions of gratitude to God. ‘‘I write,” he says, ‘‘ with 
tears of joy in my eyes.§ ‘There is a singular charm in such letters, 
penned by a man whose irresistible energy and inflexible firmness - 
extorted the respect of his enemies, whose cold and ungracious de- 
meanour repelled the attachment of almost all his partisans, and 
whose mind was occupied by gigantic schemes which have changed 
the face of the world. 

His kindness was not misplaced. Bentinck was early pronounced 
by Temple to be the best and truest servant that ever prince had the 
good fortune to possess, and continued through life to merit that 
honourable character. The friends were indeed made for each other. 
‘William wanted neither a guide nor a flatterer. Having a firm and 
just reliance on his own judgment, he was not partiai to counsellors 


ee 


* March 3, 1679. 

+ ‘* Voila en peu de mot le detail de nostre St. Hubert. - Et j’ay eu soin que M. 
Woodstoc”’ (Bentinck’s eldest son) ‘‘n’a point esté ala chasse, bien moin au 
soupé quoyqu’il fut icy. Vous pouvez pourtant croire que den ‘avoir pas chass6 
if @ un peu mortifié, mais je ne lay pas ausé prendre sur moy, puisque vous 
m’aviez dit que vous ne le souhaitiez’ pas."’ From Loo, Nov. 4, 1697. 

tOn the 15th of June, 1688. § September 6, 1679. 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 547 


who dealt much in suggestions and objections. At tne same time he 
had too much discernment and too much elevation of mind, to be 
gratified by sycophancy. The confidant of sucn a prince ought to 
be a man, not of inventive genius or commanding spirit, but brave 


and faithful, capable of executing orders punctually, of keeping 


secrets inviolably, of observing facts vigilantly, and of reporting 
them truly; and such a man was Bentinck. 

William was not less fortunate in marriage than in friendship. 
Yet his marriage had not at first promised much domestic happiness. 
His choice had been determined chiefly by political considerations: 
nor did it seem likely that any strong affection would grow up be- 
tween a handsome girl of sixteen, well disposed indeed, and naturally 
intelligent, but ignorant and simple, and a bridegroom who, though 
he had not completed his twenty-eighth year, was in constitution 
older than her father, whose manner was chilling, and whose head 
was constantly occupied by public business or by field sports. Fora 
time William was a negligent husband. He was indeed drawn away 
from his wife by other women, particularly by one of her ladies, 
Elizabeth Villiers, who, though destitute of personal attractions and 
disfigured by a hideous squint, possessed talents which fitted her to 
partake his cares.* He was indeed ashamed of his errors, and spared 
no pains to conceal them: but, in spite of all his precautions, Mary 
well knew that he was not strictly faithful to her. Spies and tale- 
bearers, encouraged by her father, did their best to inflame her re- 
sentment. A man of a very different character, the excellent Ken, 
who was her chaplain at the Hague during some months, was so 
much incensed by her wrongs that he, with more zeal than discretion, 
threatened to reprimand her husband, severely. She, however, 
bore her injuries with a meekness and patience which deserved, 
and gradually obtained, William’s esteem and gratitude. Yet 
there still remained one cause of estrangement. A time would prob- 
ably come when the Princess, who had been educated only to work 
embroidery, play on the spinet and to read the Bible and the Whole 
Duty of Man, would be the chief of a great monarchy, and would 
hold the balance of Europe, while her lord, ambitious, versed in 
affairs, and bent on great enterprises, would find in the British gov- 
ernment no piace marked out for him, and would hold power only 
from her bounty and during her pleasure. It isnot strange that a man 
so fond of authority as William, and so conscious of a genius for com- 
wand, should have strongly felt that jealousy which, during a few 
hours of royalty, put cissension between Guildford Dudley and the 
Lady Jane, and which produced a rupture still more tragical between 
Darnley and the Queen of Scots. The Princess of Orange had not the 


* See Swift’s account of her in the Journal to Stella. 
‘ teaaeil Sidney’s Journal of March 31, 1680, in Mr. Blencowe’s interesting col 
- lection. 


548 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. a 


faintest suspicion of her husband’s feelings. Her preceptor, Bishop 
Compton, had instructed her carefully in religion, and had especially 
guarded her mind against the arts of Roman Catholic divines, but 
had left her profoundly ignorant of the English constitution and of 
her own position. She knew that her marriage vow bound her to 

_ obey her husband; and it had never occurred to her that the relation 
in which they stood to each other night one day be inverted. She 
had been nine years married before she discovered the cause of Wil- 
liam’s discontent; nor would she ever have learned it from himself. 
In general his temper inclined him to brood over his griefs rather 
than to give utterance to them; and in this particular case his lips were 
sealed by a very natural delicacy. At length a complete explanation 
and reconciliation were brought about by the agency of Gilbert 
Burnet. 

The fame of Burnet has been attacked with singular malice and 
pertinacity. The attack began early in his life, and is still carried on 
with undiminished vigour, though he has now been more than a 
century and a quarter in his grave. He is indeed as faira mark as 
factious animosity and petulant wit could desire. The faults of his 
understanding and temper lie on the surface, and cannot be missed. 
They were not the faults which are ordinarily considered as belong- 
ing to his country. Alone among the many Scotchmen who have 
raised themselves to distinction and prosperity in England, he had 
that character which satirists, novelists, and dramatists have agreed 
to ascribe to Irish adventurers. His high animal spirits, his boast 
fulness, his undissembled vanity, his propensity to blunder, his pro- 
voking indiscretion, his unabashed audacity, afforded inexhaustible 
subject of ridicule to the Tories. Nor did his enemies omit to com- 
pliment him, sometimes wit’ more pleasantry than delicacy, on the 
breadth of his shoulders, the thickness of his calves, and his success 
in matrimonial projects on umorous and opulent widows. Yet Bur- 
net, though open in many respects to ridicule, and even to serious 
censure, was no contemptible man. His parts were quick, his in- 
dustry unwearied, his reading various and most extensive. He wis 
at once an historian, an antiquary, a theologian, a preacher, a pam- 
phleteer, a debater, and an active political leader; and in every one of 
these characters he made himself conspicuous among able ompetitors. 
The many spirited tracts which he wrote cn passing events are now 
k>own only to the curious; but his History of his own Times, his 
History of the Reformation, his Exposition of the Articles, his Dis- 
course of Pastoral Care, his Life of Hale, his Life of Wilmot, are 
still reprinted, nor is any good private library without them. Against 
such a fact as this all the efforts of detractors are vain. <A writer, 
whose voluminous works, in several branches of literature, find nu-— 
merous readers a hundred and thirty years after his death, may have 
had great faults, but must also have had great merits: and Burnet 
had great merits, a fertile and vigorous mind, and a style, far indeed 


~*.,* 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 549 


removed from faultless purity, but generally clear, often lively, and 
sometimes rising to solemn and fervid eloquence. In the pulpit the 
effect of his discourses, which were delivered without any note, was 
heightened by a noble figure and pathetic action. He was often in- 


_terrupted by the deep hum of his audience; and when after preaching 


out the hourglass, which in those days was part of the furniture of 
the pulpit, he held it up in his hand, the congregation clamorously 
encouraged him to go on till the sand had run off once more.* In 
his moral character, as in his intellect, great blemishes were more 
than compensated by great excellence. Though often misled by 
prejudice and passion, he was emphatically an honest man. Though 
he was not secure from the seductions of vanity, his spirit was raised 
high above the influence both of cupidity and of fear. His nature 
was kind, generous, grateful, forgiving.+ His religious zeal, though 
steady and ardent, was in general restrained by humanity, and by a 


respect for the rights of conscience. Strongly attached to what he 


regarded as the spirit of Christianity, he looked with indifference on 
rites, names, and forms of ecclesiastical polity, and was by no means 
disposed to be severe even on infidels and heretics whose lives were 
pure, and whose errors appeared to be the effect rather of some per- 
version of the understanding than of the depravity of the heart. 
But, like many other good men of that age, he regarded the case of 
the Church of Rome as an exception to all ordinary rules. 

Burnet had during some years enjoyed an European reputation. 
His History of the Reformation had been received with loud applause 
by all Protestants, and had been felt by the Roman Catholics as a 
severe blow. The greatest Doctor that the Church of Rome has pro- 
duced since the schism of the sixteenth century, Bossuet, Bishop of 
Meaux, was engaged in framing an elaborate reply. Burnet had 
been honoured by a vote of thanks from one of the zealous Parlia- 
ments which had sate during the excitement of the Popish plot, and 
had been exhorted, in the name of the Commons of England, to con- 
tinue his historical researches. He had been admitted to familiar 
conversation both with Charles and James, had lived on terms of 


* Speaker Onslow’s note on Burnet, i. 596; Johnson’s Life of Sprat. 

+ No person has contradicted Burnet more frequently or with more asperity 
than Dartmouth. Yet Dartmouth wrote, ‘‘I do not think he designedly pub- 
lished anything he believed to be false.”” Atalater period Dartmouth, provoked 
by some remarks on himself in the second volume of the Bishop’s history, re- 
tracted this praise: but to such a retraction little importance can be attached. 
Even Swift has the justice to say, ‘‘ After all, he was a man of generosity and 
good-nature.’’—Short Remarks on Bishop Burnet’s History. 

Tt is usual to censure Burnet as a singularly inaccurate historian; but I be- 
lieve the charge to be altogether unjust. He appears to be singularly inaccu- 
rate only because his narrative has been subjected to a scrutiny singularly se- 
vere and unfriendly. If any Whig thought it worth while to subject Reresby’s 
Memoirs, North’s Examen, Mulgrave’s Account of the Revolution, or the Life of 
James the Second, to a similar scrutiny, it would soon appear that Burnet was 
far indeed from being the most inexact writer of his time. 


close intimacy with several distinguished statesmen, particularly with 
Halifax, and had been the spiritual guide of some persons of the 
highest note. He had reclaimed from atheism and from licentious- 
ness one of the most brilliant libertines of the age, John Wilmot, Earl 
of Rochester. Lord Stafford, the victim of Oates, had, though a- 
Roman Catholic, been edified in his last hours by Burnet’s exhorta- 
tions touching those points on which all Christians agree. A few 
years later a more illustrious sufferer, Lord Russell, had been accom- 
panied by Burnet from the Tower to the scaffold in Lincoln’s Inn 
Fields. The Court had neglected no means of gaining so active and 
able a divine. Neither royal blandishments nor promises of valuable 
preferment had been spared. But Burnet, though infected in early 
youth by those servile doctrines which were commonly held by the 
clergy of that age, had become on conviction a Whig; and he firmly 
adhered through all vicissitudes to his principles. He had, however, 
no part in that conspiracy which brought so much disgrace and 
calamity on the Whig party, and not only abhorred the murderous 
-designs of Goodenough and Ferguson, but was of opinion that even 
his beloved and honoured friend Russell had gone to unjustifiable 
lengths against the government. <A time at Jength arrived when in- 
nocence was not a sufficient protection. Burnet, though not guilty 
of any legal offence, was pursued by the vengeance of the Court. 
He retired to the Continent, and, after passing about a year in those 
wanderings through Switzerland, Italy and Germany, of which he 
has left us an agreeable narrative, reached the Hague in the summer 
of 1686, and was received there with kindness and respect. He had 
many free conversations with the Princess on politics and religion, - 
and soon became her spiritual director and confidential adviser. 
William proved a much more gracious host than could have been ex- 
pected. Of all faults officiousness and indiscretion were the most 
offensive to him; and Burnet was allowed even by friends and ad- 
mirers to be the most officious and indiscreet of mankind. But the 
sagacious Prince perceived that this pushing talkative divine, who 
was always blabbling secrets, putting impertinent questions, obtrud- 
ing unasked advice, was nevertheless an upright, courageous and able 
man, well acquainted with the temper and the views of British sects 
and actions. The fame of Burnet’s eloquence and erudition was 
also widely spread. William was not himself a reading man. But 
he had now been many years at the head of the Dutch administra- 
tion, in an age when the Dutch press was one of the most formidable 
engines by which the public mind of Europe was moved, and, though - 
he had no taste for literary pleasures, was far too wise and too ob- 
servant to be ignorant of the value of literary assistance. He was 
aware that a popular pamphlet might sometimes be of as much ser- 
vice as a victory in the field. He also felt the importance of having 
always near him some person well informed as to the civil and ec- 
clesiastical polity of our island: and Burnet was eminently qualified 


550 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


t 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 551 


to be of use as a living dictionary of British affairs. For his knowl- 


edge, though not always accurate, was of immense extent; and there 
were in England and Scotland few eminent men of any political or 
religious party with whom he had not conversed. He was therefore 
admitted to as large a share of favour and confidence as was granted 
to any but those who composed the very small inmost knot of the 
Prince’s private friends. When the Doctor took liberties, which was 
not seldom the case, his patron became more than usually cold and 
sullen, and sometimes uttered a short dry sarcasm which would have 
struck dumb any person of ordinary assurance. In spite of such oc- 
currences, however, the amity between this singular pair continued, 
with some temporary interruptions, till it was dissolved by death. 
Indeed, it was not easy to wound Burnet’s feelings. His self-com- 
placency, his animal spirits, and his want of tact, were such that, 
though he frequently gave offence, he never took it. 

All the peculiarities of his character fitted him to be the peace- 
maker between William and Mary. When persons who ought to es- 


teem and love each other are kept asunder, as often happens, by some 


cause which three words of frank explanation would remove, they 
are fortunate if they possess an indiscreet friend who blurts out the 
whole truth. Burnet plainly told the Princess what the feeling was 
which preyed upon her husband’s mind. She learned for the first 
time, with no small astonishment, that, when she became Queen of 
England, William would not share her throne. She warmly declared 


_ that there was no proof of conjugal submission and affection which 


she was not ready to give. Burnet, with many apologies and with 
solemn protestations that no human being had put words into his 
mouth, informed her that the remedy was in her own hands. She 
might easily, when the crown devolved on her, induce her Parliament 
not only to give the regal title to her husband, but even to transfer to 
nim by a legislative act the administration of the government. ‘‘ But,” 
he added, ‘‘ your Royal Highness ought to consider well before you 
announce any such resolution. For it isa resolution which, having 
once been announced, cannot safely or easily be retracted.” ‘‘ I want 
no time for consideration,” answered Mary. ‘‘It is enough that I 
have an opportunity of showing my regard for the Prince. Tell him 
what I say; and bring him to me that he may hear it from my own 
lips.” Burnet went in questof William: but William was many miles 
off after a stag. It was not till the next day that the decisive inter- 
view took place. ‘‘I did not know till yesterday,” said Mary, ‘‘ that 
there was such a difference between the laws of England and the laws 
of God. But I now promise you that you shall always bear rule; and, 
in return, I ask only this, that, as I shall observe the precept which 
enjoins wives to obey their husbands, you will observe that which 


enjoins husbands to love their wives.” Her generous affection com- 


pletely gained the heart of William. From that time till the sad day 


_ when he was carried away in fits from her dying bed, there was entire 


552 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. : 


friendship and confidence between them. Many of her letters to him 
are extant; and they contain abundant evidence that this man, una 
miable as he was in the eyes of the multitude, had succeeded in inspir 
ing a beautiful and virtuous woman, born his superior, with a passion 
fond even to idolatry. 

The service which Burnet had rendered to his country was of high 
moment. <A time had arrived at which it was important to the pub- 
on safety that there should be entire concord between the Prince and 

rincess. ; 

Till after the suppression of the Western insurrection grave causes 
of dissension had separated William from both Whigs and Tories. 
He had seen with displeasure the attempts of the Whigs to strip the 
executive government of some powers which he thought necessary to 
its efficiency and dignity. He had seen with still deeper displeasure 
the countenance given by a large section of that party to the preten- 
sions of Monmouth. The opposition, it seemed, wished first to make 
the crown of England not worth the wearing, and then to place it on 
the head of a bastard and impostcr. At the same time the Prince’s 
religious system differed widely from that which was the badge of 
the Tories. ‘They were Arminians and Prelatists. They looked 
down on the Protestant Churches of the Continent, and regarded 
every line of their own liturgy and rubric as scarcely less sacred than 
the gospels. His opinions touchings the metaphysics of theology 
were Calvinistic. His opinions touching ecclesiastical polity and 
modes of worship were latitudinarian. He owned that episcopacy 
was a lawful and convenient form of such government; but he spoke — 
with sharpness and scorn of the bigotry of those who thought episco- 
pal ordination essential to a Christian society, He had no scruple 
about the vestments and gestures prescribed by the book of Common 
Prayer. But he avowed that he should like the rites of the Church 
of England better if they reminded him less of the rites of the Church — 
of Rome. He had been heard to utter an ominous growl when first 
he saw, in his wife’s private chapel, an altar decked after the Angli- 
can fashion, and had not seemed well pleased at finding her with 
Hooker’s Ecclesiastical Polity in her hands.* 

He therefore long observed the contest between the English fac- 
tions attentively, but without feeling a strong predilection for either 
side. Nor in truth did he ever, to the end of his life, become either 
a Whigora Tory. He wanted that which is the common ground- 
work of both characters; for he never became an Englishman. He 
saved England, it is true; but he never loved her; and he never ob- 
tained her love. To him she was always a land of exile, visited with 
reluctance and quitted with delight. Even when he rendered to her 
those services of which, at this day, we feel the happy effects, her 


eT 


Cat 


* Dr. Hooper’s MS. narrative, published in the Appendix to Lord Dungannon’s 
Life of William. . , 


‘ay 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 553 


welfare was not his chief object. Whatever patriotic feeling he had 
was for Holland. ‘There was the stately tomb where slept the great 
politican whose blood, whose name, whose temperament, and whose 
genius he hadinherited. There the very sound of his title was a spell 
which had, through three generations, called forth the affectionate 
enthusiasm of boors and artisans. The Dutch language was the lan- 
guage of hisnursery. Among the Dutch gentry he had chosen his 
early friends. The amusements, the architecture, the landscape of 
his native country had taken hold on his heart. To her he turned 
with constant fondness from a prouder and fairer rival. In the gal- 
lery of Whitehall he pined for the familiar House in the Wood at the 
Hague, and never was so happy as when he could quit the magnifi- 
cence of Windsor for his far humbler seat at Loo. During his splen- 
did banishment it was his consolation to create around him, by build- 
ing, planting, and digging, a scene which might remind him of the 
formal piles of.red brick, of the long canals, and of the symmetrical 
flower-beds among which his early life had been passed. Yet even 
his affection for the land of nis Lirth was subordinate to another feel- 
ing which early became supreme in his soul, which mixed itself with 
all his passions, which impelled him to marvellous enterprises, which 
supported him when sinking under mortification, pain, sickness and 
sorrow, which, towards the close of his career, seemed during a short 
time to languish, but which soon broke forth again fiercer than ever, 
and continued to animate him even while the prayer for the departing 
was read at his bedside. That feeling was enmity to France, and to 
the magnificent King who, in more than one sense, represented 
France, and who to virtues and accomplishments eminently French 
joined in large measure that unquiet, unscrupulous, and vainglorious 
ambition which has repeatedly drawn on France the resentment of 
Europe. 

It is not difficult to trace the progress of the sentiment which 
gradually possessed itself of William’s whole soul. When he 
was little more than a boy his country had been attacked by 
Lewis in ostentatious defiance of justice and public law, had been 
overrun, had been desolated, had been given up to every excess of 
rapacity, licentiousness, and cruelty. The Dutch had in dismay 
humbled themselves before the conqueror, and had implored mercy. 
They had been told in reply that, if they desired peace, they must re- 


sign their independence, and do annual homage to the House of Bour- 


bon. The injured nation, driven to despair, had opened its dykes, 
and had called in the sea as an ally against the French tyranny. : It 
was in the agony of that conflict, when peasants were flying in terror 
before the invaders, when hundreds of fair gardens and pleasure 
houses were buried beneath the waves, when the deliberations of the 
States were interrupted by the fainting and the loud weeping of an- 
cient senators who could not bear the thought of surviving the free- 
dom and glory of their native land, that William had been called ta 


* 
: ‘ 
* 
‘ 


554 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


the head of affairs. For a time it seemed to him that resistance was 
hopeless. He looked round him for succour, and looked in vain. 
Spain was unnerved, Germany distracted, England corrupted. 
Nothing seemed left to the young Stadtholder but to perish sword in 
hand, or to be the Aineas of a great emigration, and to create another 
Holland in countries beyond the reach of the tyranny of France. No 
obstacle would then ‘remain to check the progress of the House of 
Bourbon. A few years; and that House might add to its dominions 
Lorraine and Flanders, Castile and Aragon, Naples and Milan, 
Mexico and Peru. Lewis might wear the imperial crown, might 
place a prince of his family on the throne of Poland, might be sole 
master of Europe from the Scythian deserts to the Atlantic Ocean, 
and of America from regions north of the Tropic of Cancer to regions 
south of the Tropic of Capricorn. Such was the prospect which lay 


before William when first he entered on public life, and wlich never ~ 


ceased to haunt him till his latest day. The French monarchy was 
to him what the Roman republic was to Hannibal, what the Ottoman 
power was to Scanderbeg, what the Southron domination was to Wal- 
lace. Religion gave her sanction to that intense and unquenchable 
animosity. Hundreds of Calvinistic preachers proclaimed that the 
same power which had set apart Samson from the womb to be the 
scourge of the Philistine, and which had called Gideon from the 
threshing floor to smite the Midianite, had raised up William of Or- 
ange to be the champion of all free nations and of all pure Churches; 
nor was this notion without influence on his own mind. ‘To the con- 


a 


fidence which the heroic fatalist placed in his high destiny and in his 7 


sacred cause is to be partly attributed his singular indifference to 
danger. He had a great work to do; and till it was done nothing 
could harm him. Therefore it was that, in spite of the prognostica- 
tions of physicians, he recovered from maladies which seemed hope- 
less, that bands of assassins conspired in vain against his life, that the 
open skiff to which he trusted himself on a starless night, amidst 
raging waves, and near a treacherous shore, brought him safe to land, 
and that, on twenty fields of battle, the cannon balls passed him by 
to right and left. The ardour and perseverance with which he de- 
voted himself to his mission have scarcely any parallel in history. In 
comparison with his great object he held lives of other men as cheap 
as his own. It was but too much the habit even of the most humane 
and generous soldiers of that age to think very lightly of the blood- 
shed and devastation inseparable from great martial exploits; and the 


heart of William was steeled, not only by professional insensibility, | 


but by that sterner insensibility which is the effect of a sense of duty. 
Three great coalitions, three long and bloody wars in which all Eu- 
rope from the Vistula to the Western Ocean was in arms, are to be 
ascribed to his unconquerable energy. When in 1678 the States Gen- 
eral, exhausted and disheartened, were desirous of repose, his voice 
was still against sheathing the sword. If peace was made, it was 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 555 


made only because he could not breathe into other mena spirit as 
fierce and determined as hisown. At the very last moment, in the 
hope of breaking off the negotiation which he knew to be all but con- 
cluded, he fought one of the most bloody and obstinate battles of that 
age. From the day on which the treaty of Nimeguen was signed, he 

began to meditate a second coalition. His contest with Lewis, trans- 

ferred from the field to the cabinet, was soon exasperated by a private 
feud. In talents, temper, manners, and opinions, the rivals were di- 

ametrically opposed to each other. Lewis, polite and dignified, pro- 

fuse and voluptuous, fond of display and averse from danger, a muni- 

ficent patron of arts and letters, and a cruel persecutor of Calvinists, 

presented a remarkable contrast to William, simple in tastes, ungra- 
cious in demeanour, indefatigable and intrepid in war, regardless of 

all the ornamental branches of knowledge, and firmly attached to the 

theology of Geneva. The enemies did not long observe those courte- 

sies which men of their rank, even when opposed to each other at the 

head of armies, seldom neglect. William, irdeed, went through the 

form of tendering his best services to Lewis. But this civility was 
rated at its true value,-and requited with a dry reprimand. The great 
king affected contempt for the petty Prince who was the servant of a 
confederacy of trading towns; and to every mark of contempt the 

dauntless Stadtholder replied by a fresh def_ance. William took his 

title, a title which the events of the preceding century had made one of 
the most illustrious in Europe, from a city which lies on the banks of 
the Rhone not far from Avignon, and which, like Avignon, though 
enclosed on every side by the French territory, was properly a fief 
not of the French but of the Imperial Crown. Lewis, with that os- 
tentatious contempt of public law which was characteristic of him, 

occupied Orange, dismantled the fortifications, and confiscated the 
revenues. William ‘dec‘ared aloud at his table before many persons 
that he would make the most Christian King repent the outrage, and 
when questioned about these words by Lewis’s Ambassador, the Count 
of Avaux, positively refused either to retract them or to explain them 
away. The quarrel was carried so far that the French minister could 
not venture to present himself at the drawingroom of the Princess for 
fear of receiving some affront.* 

The feeling with which William regarded France explains the 
whole of his policy towards England. His public spirit was an Eu. 
ropean public spirit. The chief object of his care was not our island, 
not even his native Holland, but the great community of nations 


+ threatened with subjugation by one too powerful member. Those 


who commit the error of considering him as an English statesman 


must necessarily see his whole life in false light, and will be unable 


pd Ae 10 14 Sept. 28 7 
* Avaux, Negotiations, Aug. ~ Sept. rae eae Dec. re 1682, 
oa) » UCE, 3, 


S, ; Bi 


556 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


to discover any principle, good or bad, Whig or Tory, to which some 
of his most important acts can be referred. But, when we consider 
him as aman whose especial task was to join a crowd of feeble, di- 
vided and dispirited states in firm and energetic union against a com- 
mon enemy, when we consider bim as a man in whose eyes England 
was important chiefly because, without her, the great coalition which 
he projected must be incomplete, we shall be forced to admit that no 
long career recorded in history has been more uniform from the be- 
ginning to the close than that of this great Prince.* 

The clue of which we are now possessed will enable us to track 
without difficulty the course, in reality consistent, though in appear- 
ance sometimes tortuous, which he pursued towards our domestic fac- 
tions. He clearly saw what had not escaped persons far inferior to 
him in sagacity, that the enterprise on which his whole soul was in- 
tent would probably be successfulif England were on his side, would 
be of uncertain issue if England were neutral, and would be hopeless 
if England acted as she had acted in the days of the Cabal. He saw 
not less clearly that between the foreign policy and the domestic 
policy of the English government there was a close connection; that 
the sovereign of this country, acting in harmony with the legislature, 
must always have a great sway in the affairs of Christendom, and 
must also have an obvious interest in opposing the undue aggrandise- 
ment of any Continental potentate; that, on the other hand, the sov- 
creign distrusted and thwarted by the legislature, could be of little 
weight in European politics, and that the whole of that little weight 
would be thrown into the wrong scale. The Prince’s first wish there- 
fore was that there should be concord between the throne and the Par- 
liament. How that concord should be established, and on which side .- 
concessions should be made, were, in his view, questions of secondary 
importance. He would have been best pleased, no doubt, to see a 
complete reconciliation effected without the sacrifice of one tittle of 
the prerogative. For in the integrity of that prerogative he had a re- 
versionary interest; and he was, by nature, at least as covetous of 
power and as impatient of restraint as any of the Stuarts. But there 
was no flower of the crown which he was not prepared to sacrifice, 
even after the crown had been placed on his own head, if he could 
only be convinced that such a sacrifice was indispensably necessary - 
to his great design. In the days of the Popish plot, therefore, though 


a ne 


*T cannot deny myself the pleasure of quoting Massillon’s unfriendly, yet dis- 
criminating and noble, character of William. ‘*‘Un prince profond dans ses 
vues; habile 4former des ligues et 4 réunir les esprits; plus heureux 4 exciter 
les guerres qu’é combattre; plus 4 craindre encore dans le secret du cabinet, 
qu’a la téte des armées; un ennemi que la haine du nom Frangais avoit rendu 
capable d’imaginer de grandes choses et de let exécuter; un de ces génies qui 
semblent étre nés pour mouvoir & leur gré Jes peuples et les souverains; un 
Byebe Dome, sil n’avoit jamais voulu étre roi.’-—Oraison Funébre de M, le 

auphin. 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 55? 


he disapproved of the violence with which the opposition attacked 
the royal authority, he exhorted the government to give way. The 
conduct of the Commons, he said, as respected domestic affairs, was 
most unreasonable: but while the Commons were discontented the 
liberties of Europe could never be safe; and to that paramount con- 
sideration every other consideration ought to yield. On these princi- 
ples he acted when the Exclusion Bill had thrown the nation into 


convulsions. There is no reason to believe that he encouraged the 


opposition to bring forward that bill or to reject the offers of com- 
promise which were repeatedly made from the throne. But when it 
became clear that, unless that bill were carried, there would be a seri- 
ous breach between the Commons and the Court, he indicated very 
intelligibly, though with decorous reserve, lis opinion that the repre- 
sentatives of the people ought to be conciliated at any price. When 
a violent and rapid reflux of public feeling had left the Whig party 
for a time utterly helpless, he attempted to attain his grand object 
by a new road perhaps more agreeable to his temper than that which 
he had previously tried. In the altered temper of the nation there 
was little chance that any Parliament disposed to cross the wishes of 
the sovereign would be elected. Charles was for a time master. To 
gain Charles, therefore, was the Prince’s first wish. In the summer 
of 1683, almost at the moment at which the detection of the Rye 
House plot made the discomfiture of the Whigs, and the triumph of 
the King complete, events took place elsewhere which William could 
not behold without extreme anxiety and alarm. The Turkish armies 
advanced to the suburbs of Vienna. ‘The great Austrian monarchy, 
on the support of which the Prince had reckoned, seemed to be on the 
point of destruction. Bentinck was therefore sent in haste from the 


-Hague to London, was charged to omit nothing which might be nec- 


essary to conciliate the English court, and was particularly instructed 
to express in the strongest terms the horror with which his master re 
garded the Whig conspiracy. 

During the eighteen months which followed, there was some hope 
that the influence of Halifax would prevail, and that the court of 
Whitehall would return to the policy of the Triple Alliance. To 
that hope William fondly clung. He spared no effort to propitiate 
Charles. The hospitality which Monmouth found at the Hague is 
chiefly to be ascribed to the Prince’s anxiety to gratify the real 
wishes of Monmouth’s father. As soon as Charles died, William, 
still adhering unchangeably to his object, again changed his course. 
He had sheltered Monmouth to please the late King. That the 
present King might have no reason to compiain Monmouth was dis- 
missed. We have seen that, when the Western insurrection broke 
out, the British regiments in the Dutch service were, by the active 
exertions of the Prince, sent over to their own country on the first 
requisition. Indeed William even offered to command in person 
against the rebels; and that the offer was made in perfect sincerity 


558 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


cannot be doubted by those who have perused his confidential let- 
ters to Bentinck.* 

The Prince was evidently at this time inclined to hope that the 
great plan, to which in his mind everything else was subordinate, 
might obtain the approbation and support of his father inlaw. The 
high tone which James was then holding towards France, the readi- 
ness with which he consented to a defensive alliance with the United 
Provinces, the inclination which he showed to connect himseif with 
the House of Austria, encouraged this expectation. But in a short 
time the prospect was darkened. The disgrace of Halifax, the 
breach between James and the Parliament, the prorogation, the an- 
nouncement distinctly made by the King to the foreign ministers 
that Continental politics should no longer divert his attention from 
internal measures tending to strengthen his prerogative and to pro- 
mote the interest of his Church, put an end to the delusion. It was 
plain that, when the European crisis came, England would, if James 
were her master, either remain inactive or act in conjunction with 
France. And the European crisis was drawing near. The House 
of Austria had, by a succession of victories, been secured from dan- 
ger on the side of Turkey, and was no longer under the necessity of 
submitting patiently to the encroachments and insults of Lewis. 
Accordingly, in July, 1686, a treaty was signed at Augsberg by 
which the Princes of the Empire bound themselves closely together 
for the purpose of mutual defence. The Kings of Spain and Swe- 
den were parties to this compact, the King of Spain as sovereign of 
the provinces contained in the circle of burgundy, and the King of 
Sweden as Duke of Pomerania. The confederates declared that 
they had no intention to attack and no wish to offend any power, 
but that they were determined to tolerate no infraction of those 
rights which the germanic body held under the sanction of public 
law and public faith. They pledged themselves to stand by each 
other in case of need, and fixed the amount of force which each 
member of the league was to furnish if it should be necessary to re- 
pel aggression. + The name of William did not appear in this in- 
strument: but ail men knew that it was his work, and foresaw that 
he would in no long time be again the captain of a coalition 
against France. Between him and the vassal of France there could, 
in such circumstances, be no cordial good will. There was no 
open rupture, no interchange of menaces or reproaches. But the 


*For example, ‘‘Je crois M, Feversham un trés brave et honeste homme 
Mais je doute s'il a assez d’expérience a diriger une si grande affaire qu’il a sur 
le bras. Dieu lui donne un succés prompt et heureux! Mais je ne suis pas hors 
Winquiétude.” J uly ¥ 7, 1685 Again, after he had received the news of the bat- 
_ tle of Sedgemoor, ‘* Dieu soit loué du bon succés que les troupes du Roy ont eu 
contre les rebelles. Je ne doute pas que cette affaire ne Ae entiérement as- 
soupie, et que le régne du Roy sera heureux, ce que Dieu veuille.” July 45. 

+ The treaty will be found in the Recueil des Traités, iv. No. 209 


‘ 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 559 


father in Jaw and the son in law were separated completely and for 
ever. 

At the very time at which the Prince was thus estranged from the 
English court, the causes which had hitherto produced a coolness be- 
tween him and the two great sections of the English people disap- 
peared. A large portion, perhaps a numerical majority, of the 
Whigs had favoured the pretensions of Monmouth; but Monmouth 
was now nomore. The Tories,on the other hand, had entertained 
appzehensions that the interests of the Anglican Church might not 
be safe under the rule of aman bred among Dutch Presbyterians, 
and well known to hold latitudinarian opinions about robes, cere- 
monies, and Bishops; but since that beloved Church has been threat- 
ened by far more formidable dangers from a very different quarter, 
these apprehensions had lost almost ali their power. Thus, at the 
same moment, both the great parties began to fix their hopes and 
their affections on the same leader Old republicans could not re- 
fuse their confidence to one who had worthily filled, during many 
years, the highest magistracy of a republic. Old royalists conceived 
that they acted according to their principles in paying profound re- 
spect to a Prince so near to the throne. At this conjuncture it was 
of the highest moment that there should be entire union between 
William and Mary. A misunderstanding between the presumptive 
heiress of the crown and her husband must have produced a schism 
in that vast mass which was from all quarters gathering round one 
common rallying point. Happily all risk of such misunderstanding 
was averted in the critical instant by the interposition of Burnet; 
and the Prince became the unquestioned chief of the whole of that 
party which was opposed to the government, a party almost coexten- 
sive with the nation. 

There is not the least reason to believe that he at this time medi 
tated the great enterprise to which a stern necessity afterwards drove 
him. He was aware that the public mind of England, though heated 
by grievances, was by no means ripe for revolution. He would 
doubtless gladly have avoided the scandal which must be the effect 
of a mortal quarrel between persons bound together by the closest 
ties of consanguinity and affinity. Even his ambition made him un- 
willing to owe to violence that greatness which might soon be his in 
the ordinary course of nature and of law. For he well knew that, 
if the crown descended to his wife regularly, all its prerogatives 
would descend unimpaired with it, and that, if it were obtained by 
election, it must be taken subjeci to such conditions as the electors 
might think fit to impose. He meant, therefore, as it appears, to 
wait with patience for the day when he might govern by an undis- 
puted title, and to content himself in the meantime with exercising 
a great influence on English affairs, as first Prince of the blood, and 
as head of the party which was decidedly preponderant in the nation, 
and which was certain, whenever a Parliameat should meet, to be 
decidedly preponderant in both Houses. 


560 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


Already, it is true, he had been urged by an adviser, less sagacious 
and more impetuous than himself, to try a bolder course. This 
adviser was the young Lord Mordaunt. That age had produced no. 
more inventive genius, and no more daring spirit.” But, if a design 
was splendid, Mordaunt seldom inquired whether it were practicable. 
His life was a wild romance made up of mysterious intrigues, both 
political and amorous, of violent and rapid changes of scene 
and fortune, and of victories resembling those of Amadis and 
Launcelot rather than those of Luxemburg and Eugene.. The epi- 
sodes interspersed in this strange story were of a piece with the main 
plot. Among them were midnight encounters with generous robbers, 
and rescues of noble and beautiful ladies from ravishers. . Mordaunt, 
having distinguished himself by the eloquence and audacity with 
which, in the House of Lords, he had opposed the court, repaired, 
soon after the prorogation, to the Hague, and strongly recommended 
an immediate descent on England. He had persuaded himself that 
it would be as easy to surprise three great kingdoms as he long after- 
wards found it to surprise Barcelona. William listened, meditated, 
and replied, in general terms, that he took a great interest in English 
affairs, and would keep his attention fixed on them.* Whatever his 
purpose had been, it is not likely that he would have chosen a rash 
and vainglorious knight errant for his confidant. Between the two 
men there was nothing in common except personal courage, which 
rose in beth to the height of fabulous heroism. Mordaunt wanted 
merely to enjoy the excitement of conflict, and to make men stare. 
William had one great end ever before him. Towards that end he was 
impelled by a strong passion which appeared to him under the guise 
of a sacred duty. Towards that end he toiled with a patience 
resembling, as he once said, the patience with which he had seen a 
boatman on a canal strain against an adverse eddy, often swept 
pack, but never ceasing to pull, and content if by the labour of hours, 
a few yards could be gained.t Exploits which brought the Prince 
no nearer to his object, however glorious they might be in the estima- 
tion of the vulgar, were in his judgment boyish vanities and no part 
of the real business of tife. 

He determined to reject Mordaunt’s advice; and there can be no 
doubt that the determination was wise. Had William, in 1686, or 
even in 1687, attempted to do what he did with such signal success 
in 1688, it is probable that many Whigs would have risen in arms at 
his call. But he would have found that the nation was not yet pre- 
pared to welcome a deliverer from a foreign country, and that the 
Church had not yet been provoked and insulted into forgetfulness of 
the tenet which had long been her peculiar boast. The old Cavaliers 
. would have flocked to the royal standard. There would probably 

have been in all the three kingdoms a civil war as long and fierce as 


* Burnet, i. 762. -  +Temple’s Memoirs. 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 561 


that of the preceding generation. While that war was raging in the 
British Isles, what might not Lewis attempt on the Continent ? And 
what hope would there be for Holland, drained of her troops, and 
abandoned by her Stadtholder ? 

William therefore contented himself for the present with taking 
measures to unite and animate that mighty opposition of which he had 
become thehead. This was not difficult. The fall of the Hydes had ex- 
cited throughout England extreme alarm and indignation. Men 
felt that the question now was, not whether Protestantism should be 
dominant, but whether it should be tolerated. The Treasurer had 
been succeeded by a board, of which a Papist was the head. The 
Privy Seal had been entrusted to a Papist. The Lord Lieutenant of 
Ireland had been succeeded by a man who had absolutely no claim 
to high place except that he was a Papist. The last person whom a gov- 
ernment having in view the general interests of the empire would have 
sent to Dublin as Deputy was Tyrconnel. His brutal manners made 
him unfit to represent the majesty of the crown. The feebleness of his 
uuderstanding and the violence of his temper made him unfit to 
- conduct grave business of state. The deadly animosity which he 

felt towards the possessors of the greater part of the soil of Ireland 
made him especially unfit to rule that kingdom. But the intemper- 
ance of his bigotry was thought amply to atone for the intemperance 
of all his other passions; and, in consideration of the hatred which 
he bore to the reformed faith, he was suffered to indulge without 
restraint his hatred of the English name. This, then, was the real 
meaning of His Majesty’s respect for the rights of conscience. He 
wished his Parliament to remove all the disabilities which had been 
imposed on Papists, merely in order that he might himself impose 
disabilities equally galling on Protestants. It was plain that, 
under such a prince, apostasy was the only road to greatness. It 
was a road, however, which few ventured to take. For the spirit of 
the nation was thoroughly roused; and every renegade had to endure 
such an amount of: public scorn and detestation as cannot be alto- 
gether unfelt even by the most callous natures. 

It is true that several remarkable conversions had recently taken 
place; but they were such as did little credit to the Church of Rome. 
Two men of high rank had joined hercommunion; Henry Mordaunt, 
Earl of Peterborough, and James Cecil, Earl of Salisbury. But 
Peterborough, who had been an active soldier, courtier, and negotia- 
tor, was now broken Gown by years and infirmities; and those who 
saw him totter about the galleries of Whitehall, leaning on a stick 
and swathed up in flannels and plasters, comforted themselves for 
his defection by remarking that he had not changed his religion till 
he had outlived his faculties.* Salisbury was foolish to a proverb. 
His figure was so bloated by sensual indulgence as to be almost inca- 


* See the poems entitled The Converts and The Delusion. 


562 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, 


pable of moving; and this sluggish body was the abode of an equally 
sluggish mind. He was represented in popular lampoons as a man 
made to be duped, as a man who had hitherto been the prey of game . 
stersg, and who might as well be the prey of friars. A pasquinade, 
which, about the time of Rochester’s retirement, was fixed on the 
door of Salisbury House in the Strand, described in coarse terms the 
horror with which the wise Robert Cecil, if he could rise from his 
grave, would see to what a creature his honours had descended.* 

These were the highest in station among the proselytes of James. 
There were other renegades of a very different kind, needy men of 
parts who were destitute of principle and of all sense of persona 
dignity. There is reason to believe that among these was William 
Wycherley, the most licentious and hardhearted writer of a singularly 
licentious and hardhearted school.+ It is certain that Matthew 
Tindal, who, at a later period, acquired great notoriety by writing 
against Christianity, was at this time received into the bosom of the 
infallible Church, a fact which, as may easily be supposed, the 
divines with whom he was subsequently engaged in controversy did 
not suffer to sink into oblivion.{ A still more infamous apostate was 
Joseph Haines, whose name is now almost forgotten, but who was 
well known in his own time as an adventurer of versatile parts, 
sharper, coiner, false witness, sham bail, dancing master, buffoon, 
poet, comedian. Some of his prologues and epilogues were much 
admired by his contemporaries; and his merit as an actor was univer- 
sally acknowledged. ‘This man professed himself a Roman Catholic, 
and went to Italy in the retinue of Castelmaine, but was soon dis- 
missed for misconduct. If any credit be due to a tradition which 
was long preserved in the green room, Haines had the impudence to 
affirm that the Virgin Mary had appeared to him and called him to 
repentance. After the Revolution, he attempted to make his peace 
with the town by a penance more scandalous than his offence. One 
night, before he acted in a farce, he appeared on the stage in a white 
sheet with a torch in his hand, and recited some profane and indecent 
doggerel, which he called his recantation.§ 

With the name of Haines was joined, in many libels, the name of 
amore illustrious renegade, John Dryden. Dryden was now ap- 
proaching the decline of life. After many successes and many fail- 
ures, he had at length attained, by general consent, the first place 
among living English poets. His claims on the gratitude of James 
were superior to those of any man of letters in the kingdom. But 


ae ne ny nn en some en a a ne ee ee 


* The lines are in the Collection of State Poems. 

+Our information about Wycherley is very scanty: but two things are cer- 
tain, that in his later years he called himself a Papist, and that he received 
money from James. I have very little doubt that he was a hired convert. 

{See the article on him in the Biographia Britannica. 

§See James Quin’s account of Haines in Davies’s Miscellanies; Tom Brown's 
Works; Lives of Sharpeis; Dryden’s Epilogue to the Secular Masque, 


7 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 563 


James cared little for verses and much for money. From the day of ~ 
his accession he set himself to make small economical reforms, such 
as bring on a government the reproach of meanness without produc- 
ing any perceptible relief to the finances. One of the victims of this 
injudicious parsimony was Dryden. A pension of a hundred a year 
which had been given to him by Charles and had expired with 
Charles was not renewed. ‘The demise of the Crown made it neces- 
sary that the Poet Laureate should have a new patent; and orders 
were given that, in this patent, the annual butt of sack, originally 
granted to Jonson, and continued to Jonson’s successors, should be 
omitted.* This was the only notice which the King, during the first 
year of his reign, deigned to bestow on the mighty satirist who, in 
the very crisis of the great struggle of the Exclusion Bill, had spread 
terror through the Whig ranks. Dryden was poor and impatient of 
poverty. He knew little and cared little about religion. If any sen- 
timent was deeply fixed in him, that sentiment was an aversion to 
priests of all persuasions, Levites, Augurs, Muftis, Roman Catholic 
divines, Presbyterian divines, divines of the Church of England. He 
was not naturally a man of high spirit; and his pursuits had been by 
no means such as were likely to give elevation or delicacy to his 
mind. He had, during many years, earned his daily bread by pan- 
dering to the vicious taste of the pit, and by grossly flattering rich and 
noble patrons. Selfrespect and a fine sense of the becoming were 
not to be expected from one who had led alife of mendicancy and adu- 
lation. Finding that, if he continued to call himself a Protestant, 
his services would be overlooked, he declared himself a Papist. The 
King’s parsimony speedily relaxed. Dryden’s pension was restored: 
the arrears were paid up; and he was employed to defend his new 
religion both in prose and verse.+ 

Two eminent men, Samuel Johnson and Walter Scott, have done 
their best to persuade themselves and others that this memorable 
conversion was sincere. It was natural that they should be desirous 
to remove a disgraceful stain from the memory of one whose genius 
they justly admired, and with whose political feelings they strongly 
sympathised; but the impartial historian must with regret pronounce 
a very different judgment. There will always be a strong presuinp- 
tion against the sincerity of a conversion by which the convert is di- 
rectly a gainer. In the case of Dryden there is nothing to counter- 
vail this presumption. His theological writings abundantly prove 
that he had never sought with diligence and anxiety to learn the 


* This fact, which escaped the minute researches of Malone, appears from the 
Treasury Letter Book of 1685. 

_  +It has lately been asserted that Dryden’s pension was restored long before 

he turned Papist, and that therefore it ought not to be considered as the price 

of his apostasy. But this is an entire mistake. Dyden’s pension was restored 

by letters patent of the 4th of March 1682; and his apostasy had been the talk of 

the town at least six weeks before. See Evelyn’s Diary, January 19,168§. (1857) 


564 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


truth, and that his knowledge both of the Church which he quitted 
and of the Church which he entered was of the most superficial 
kind. Nor was his subsequent conduct that of aman whom a strong 
sense of duty had constrained to take a step of awful importance, 
Had he been such a man, the same conviction which had led him to 
join the Church of Rome would surely have prevented him from 
violating grossly and habitually rules which that Church, in common 
with every other Christian society, recognises as binding. There 
would have been a marked distinction between his earlier and 
his later compositions. He would have looked back with remorse 
on a literary life of near thirty years, during which his rare powers 
of diction and versification had been systematically employed in 
spreading moral corruption. Not a line tending to make virtue con- 
temptible, or to inflame licentious desire, would thenceforward have ~ 
proceeded from his pen. The truth unhappily is that the dramas 
whicb he wrote after his pretended conversion are in no respect less 
impure or profane than those of his youth. Even when he professed — 
to translate he constantly wandered from his originals in search of 
images which, if re had found them in his originals, he oughi to 
have shunned. What was bad became worse in his versions. What 
was innocent contracted a taintaéfrom passing through his mind, He 
made the grossest satires of Juvenal more gross, interpolated loose 
descriptions in the tales of Boccaccio, and polluted the sweet and 
limpid poetry of the Georgics with filth which would have moved 
the loathing of Virgil. 

The help of Dryden was welcome to those Roman Catholic divines 
who were painfully sustaining a conflict against all that was most 
illustrious in the Established Church. They could not disguise from 
themselves the fact that their style, disfigured with foreign idioms 
which had been picked up at Rome and Douay, appeared to little 
advantage when compared with the eloquence of Tillotson and Sher- 
lock. It seemed that it was no light thing to have secured the 
coéperation of the greatest living master of the English language. 
The first service which he was required to perform in return fo his 
pension was to defend his Church in prose against Stillingfleet. But 
the art of saying things well is useless to a man who has nothing to 
say; and this was Dryden’s case. He soon found himself unequally 
paired with an antagonist whose whole. life had been one long train- 
ing for controversy. The veteran gladiator disarmed the novice, 
inflicted a few contemptuous scratches, and turned away to encounter 
more formidable combatants. Dryden then betook himself to a 
weapon at which he was not likely to find his match. He retired 
for a time from the bustle of coffeehouses and theatres to a quiet re- 
treat in Huntingdonshire, and there composed, with unwonted care 
and labour, his celebrated poem on the points in dispute between the 
Churches of Rome and’ England. The Church of Rome he repre- 
sented under the similitude of the milkwhite hind, ever in peril of 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 565 


death, yet fated not to die. The beasts of the fie!d were bent on her 
destruction. The quaking hare, indeed, observed a_timorous 
neutrality: but the Socinian fox, the Presbyterian wolf, the Indepen- 
dent bear, the Anabaptist boar, glared fiercely at the spotless creature. 
Yet she could venture to drink with them at the common watering 
place under the protection of her friend, the kingly lion. The : 


_ Church of England was typified by the p: anther, spotted indeed, but 


beautiful, too beautiful for a beast of prey. The hind and panther, 
equally hated by the ferocious population of the forest, conferred 


apart on their common danger. ‘They then proceeded to discuss the 


points on which they differed, and, while wagging their tails and 
licking their jaws, held a long dialogue touching the real presence, 
the authority of Popes and Councils, the penal laws, the Test Act, 
Oates’s perjuries, Butler’s unrequited services to the Cavalier party, 
Stillingfleet’s pamphlets, and Burnet’s broad shoulders and fortunate 
matrimonial speculations. 

The absurdity of this plan is obvious. In truth the allegory could 
not be preserved unbroken through ten lines together. o art of 
execution could redeem the faults of such a design. Yet the Fable 
of the Hind and Panther is undoubtedly the most valuable addition 
which was made to English literature during the short and troubled 
reion of James the Second. In none of Dryden’s works can be 
found passages more pathetic and magnificent, greater ductility and 
encrey of language, or a more pleasing and various music. 

‘The poem appeared with every advantage which royal patronag> 
could give. A superb edition was printed. for Scotland at the 
Roman Catholic press established in Holyrood House. But men 
were in no humour to be charmed by the transparent style and me- 
lodious numbers of the apostate. The disgust excited by his venal- 
ity, the alarm excited by the policy of which he was the eulogist, 
were not to be sung to sleep. The just indignation of the public was 
inflamed by many who were smarting from his ridicule, and by many 
who were envious of his renown. In spite of all the restraints under 
which the press lay, attacks on his life and writings appeared daily. 
Sometimes he was Bayes, sometimes Poet Squab. He was reminded 
that in his youth he had paid to the House of Cromwell the same 
servile court which he was now paying to the House of Stuart. One 
set of his assailants maliciously reprinted the sarcastic verses which 
he had written against Popery in days when he could have got nothing 
by being a Papist. Of the many satirical pieces which appeared on 
this occasion, the most successful was the joint'work of two young 
men who had lately completed their studies at Cambridze, aud had 
been welcomed as promising novices in the literary coffeehouses in 
London, Charles Montague and Matthew Prior. Montague was of 
noble descent: the origin of Prior wasso obscure that no biographer 
has been able to trace it; but both the adventurers were poor and as- 
piring: both had keen and vigorous minds: both afterwards climbed 


566 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


high; and both united in a remarkable degree the love of letters with 
' skill in those departments of business for which men of letters gener- 
ally have a strong distaste. Of the fifty poets whose lives Johnson 


has written, Montague and Prior were the only two who were dis- © 


tinguished by an intimate knowledge of trade and finance. Soon 
their paths diverged widely. Their early friendship was dissolved. 
One of them became the chief of the Whig party, and was impeached 
by the Tories. The other was entrusted with all the mysteries of 
Tory diplomacy, and was long kept close prisoner by the Whigs. 
At length, after many eventful years, the associates, so long parted, 
were reunited in Westminster Abbey. 

Whoever has read the tale of the Hind and Panther with attention 
must have perceived that, while that work was in progress, a great 
alteration took place in the views of those who used Dryden as their 
interpreter. At first the Church of England is mentioned with ten- 
derness and respect, and is exhorted to ally herself with the Roman 

Jatholic against the Protestant Dissenters: but at the close of the 

poem, and in the preface, which was written after the poem had 
been finished, the Protestant Dissenters are invited to make com- 
mon cause with the Roman Catholics against the Church of Eng- 
land. 

This change in the language of the court poet was indicative of 
a great change in the policy of the court. The original purpose of 
James had been to obtain for the Church of which he was a member, 
not only complete immunity from all penalties and from all civil dis- 
abilities, but also an ample share of ecclesiastical and academical 
endowments, and at the same time to enforce with rigour the laws 
against the Puritan sects. All the special dispensations which he 
had granted had been granted to Roman Catholics. All the laws 
which bore hardest on the Presbyterians, Independents, and Baptists, 
had been executed by him with extraordinary rigour. While Hales 


commanded aregiment, while Powis sate at the Council board, while 


Massey held a deanery, while breviaries and mass books were printed 
at Oxford under a royal license, while the host was publicly ex- 
posed in London under the protection of the pikes and muskets of 
the foot-guards, while friars and monks walked the streets of Lon- 
con in their robes, Baxter was in gaol; Howe was in exile; the Five 
Mile Act and the Conventicle Act were in full vigour; Puritan writ- 
ers were compelled to resort to foreign or to secret presses; Puritan 
congregations could meet only by night or in waste places; and 
Puritan ministers were forced to preach in the garb of colliers or of 
sailors. In Scotland the King, while he spared no exertion to extort 
from the Estates full relief for Roman Catholics, had demanded and 
obtained new statutes of unprecedented severity against .Presby- 
. terians. His conduct to the exiled Huguenots had not less clearly 
indicated his feelings. We have seen that, when the public munifi- 
cence had placed in his hands a large sum for the relief of those un- 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 567 


happy men, he, in violation of every law of hospitality and good 
faith, required them to renounce the Calvinistic ritual to which they 
were strongly attached, and to conform to the Church of England, 
before he would dole out to them any portion of the alms which had 
been entrusted to his care. 

Such had been his policy as long as he could cherish any hope 
that the Church of England would consent to share ascendency with 


the Church of Rome. That hope at onetime amounted to confi- 


dence. ‘The enthusiasm with which the Tories hailed his accession, 
the elections, the dutiful language and ample grants of his Parlia- 
ment, the suppression of the Western insurrection, the complete 
prostration of the faction which had attempted to exclude him from 
the crown, elated him beyond the bounds of reason. He felt an as- 
surance that every obstacle would give away before his power and 
his resolution. But he was disappointed. His Parliament withstood 
him. He tried the effects of frowns and menaces. Frowns and 
menaces failed. He tried the effect of prorogation. From the day of 
the prorogation the opposition to his designs had been growing 
stronger and stronger. Itseemed clear that, if he effected his pur- 
pose, he must effect it in defiance of that great party which had 


_ given such signal proofs of fidelity to his office, to his family, and to 


~ 


his person. The whole Anglican priesthood, the whole Cavalier 
gentry, were against him. In vain had he, by virtue of his ecclesi- 
astical supremacy, enjoined the clergy to abstain from discussing 
controverted points. Every parish in the nation was warned every 
Sunday against the errors of Rome; and these warnings were only 
the more effective, because they were accompanied by professions of 
reverence for the Sovereign, and of a determination to endure with 
patience whatever it might be his pleasure to inflict. The royalist 
knights and esquires who, through forty-five years of war and faction, 
had stood so manfully by the throne, now expressed, in no measured 
phrase, their resolution to stand as manfully by the Church. Dullas 
was the intellect of James, despotic as was his temper, he felt that he 
must change his course. He could not safely venture to outrage all 
his Protestant subjectsat once If he could bring himself to make 
concessions to the party which predominated in both Houses, 
if he could bring himself to leave to the established religion all its 
dignities, emoluments, and privileges unimpaired, he might stil] 
break up Presbyterian meetings, and fill the gaols with Baptist 
preacuers. But, if he was determined to plunder the hierarchy, he 
must make up his mind to forego the luxury of persecuting the Dis- 
senters, If he was henceforward to be at feud with his old friends, 


he must make a truce with his old enemies. He could overpower 


the Anglican Church only by forming against her an extensive coali- 
tion, including sects which, though they differed in doctrine and 
government far more widely from each other than from her, might 


yet be induced, by their common jealousy of her greatness, and by 


= a 4 
- 7 , 


™ 
: 


568 | HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


their common dread of her intolerance, to suspend their mutual ani 
mosities till she was no longer able to oppress thein. . 

This plan seemed to him to have one strong recommendation. [If 
he could only succeed in conciliating the Protestant Nonconformists 
he might flatter himself that lhe was secure against all chance of re- 
bellion. According to the Anglican divines, no subject could by 
any provocation be justified in withstanding the Lord’s anointed by 
force. The theory of the Puritan sectaries was very different. Those 
sectaries had no scruple about smiting tyrants with the sword of — 
Gideon. Many of them did not shrink from using the dagger of 
Ehud. They were probably even now meditating another Western — 
insurrection, or another Rye House plot. James, therefore, -con- 
ceived that he might safely persecute the Church if he could only 
gain the Dissenters. The party whose principles afforded lim 
no guarantee would be attached to him by interest. The party 
whose interests he attacked would be restrained from insurrection by 
principle. 

Influenced by such considerations as these, James, from the 
time at which he parted in anger with his Parliament, began to 
meditate a general league of ‘all Nonconformists, Catholic and 
Protestant, against the ~ established religion. So early as Chirist- 
mas 1685, the agents of the United Provinces informed the 
States General that the plan of a general toleration had been arranged — 
and would soon be disclosed.* The reports which had reached the ~ 
Dutch embassy proved to be premature. The separatists appear, how- 
ever, to have been treated with more lenity during the year 1686 than ~ 
during the year 1685. But it was only by slow degrees and after many 
struggles that the King could prevail on himself to form an alliance | 
with all that he most abhorred. He had to overcome an animosity, 
not slight or capricious, not of recent origin or hasty growth, but 
hereditary in his line, strengthened by great wrongs inflicted and 
suffered through a hundred and twenty eventful years, and inter- 
twined with all his feelings, religious, political, -domestic. and per- — 
- sonal. Four generations of Stuarts had waged a war to the death 
with four generations of Puritans; and through that long war, there — 
had been no Stuart who had hated the Puritans so much, or who had ~ 
been so much hated by them, as himself. They had tried to blast 
his honour and to exclude him from his birthright: they had called 
him incendiary, cutthroat, poisoner: they had driven him from the — 
Admiralty and the Privy Council: they had repeatedly chased Lim — 
into banishment: they had plotted his assassination: they had risen — 
against him in arms by thousands. He had avenged himself on them ~ 
by havoc such as England had never before seen. Their heads and © 
quarters were still rotting on poles in all the marketplaces of Somer- 


Dec. 25, 
*Van Leeuwen, 1685-6, 
Jan. 4, 


ne a 


a i 
iF 
eae 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 569 


setshire and Dorsetshire. Aged women, held in high honour among 
the sectaries for piety and charity, had, for offences which no good 
prince would have thought deserving even of a severe reprimand, 
been beheaded and burned alive. Such had been, even in England, 
the relations between the King and the Puritans; and in Scotland 
the tyranny of the King and the fury of the Puritans had been such 
as Englishmen could hardly conceive. 'To forget an enmity so long 
and so deadly was no light task for a nature singularly harsh and 
implacable. 

The conflict in the royal mind did not escape the eye of Burillon. 
Atthe end of January, 1687, he sent a remarkable letter to Versailles. 
The King,—such was the substance of this document,—had almost 
convinced himself that he could not obtain entire liberty for Roman 
Catholics and yet maintain the laws against Protestant Dissenters. 
He leaned, therefore, to the plan of a general indulgence; but at 
heart he would be far better pleased if he could, even now, divide 
his protection and favour between the Church of Rome and the 
Church of England, to the exclusion of all other religious persua- 
sions.* 

A very few days after this despatch had*been written, James made 
his first hesitating and ungracious advances towards the Puritans. 
He had determined to begin with Scotland, where his power to dis- 
pense with Acts of Parliament had been admitted by the obsequious 
Hstates. On the twelfth of February, accordingly, was published at 
Edinburgh a proclamation granting relief to scrupulous consciences.+ 
This proclamation fully proves the correctness of Barillon’s judg- 
ment. Even in the very act of making concessions to the Presby- 
terians, James could not conceal the loathing with which he regarded 
them. The toleration given to the Catholics was complete. The 
(Juakers had little reason to complain. But the indulgence vouch- 
safed to the Presbyterians, who constituted the great body of the 
Scottish people, was clogged by conditions which made it almost 
worthless. For the old test, which excluded Catholics and Presby- 
terians alike from office, was substituted a new test, which admitted 
the Catholics, but excluded most of the Presbyterians. The Catholics 
were allowed to build chapels, and even to carry the host in proces- 
sion anywhere except in the high streets of the royal burghs; the 
Quakers were suffered to assemble in public edifices: but the Presby- 
terians were interdicted from worshipping God anywhere but in 
private dwellings: they were not to presume to build meeting houses:. 
they were not even to use a barn or an outhouse for religious exer- 


Jan. 31, 


* Barillon, 1686-7. ‘‘ Je crois que, dans le fond, si on ne pouvoit laisser 


que la religion Anglicane et la Catholique établies par les loix, le Roy d’Angle- 
terre en seroit bien plus content.” 


+It will be found in Wodrow, Appendix, vol. ii. No. 129. 


570 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


cises: and it was distinctly notified to them that, if they dared to 
hoid conventicles in the open air, the law, which denounced death 


against both preachers and hearers, should be enforced without - 


mercy. Any Catholic priest might say mass: any Quaker might har- 
rangue his brethren: but the Privy Council was directed to see that no 
Presbyterian minister presumed to preach without a special license 
from the government. Every line of this instrument, and of the 
letters by which it was accompanied, shows how much it cost the 
King to relax in the smallest degree the rigour with which he had 
ever treated the old enemies of his house.* 

There is reason, indeed, to believe that, when he published this 
proclamation, he had by no means fully made up his mind to a 
coalition with the Puritans, and that his object was to grant just so 
much favour to them as might suffice to frighten the Churchmen in- 
to submission. He therefore waited a month, in order to see what 
effect the edict put forth at Edinburgh would produce in England. 
That month he employed assiduously, by Petre’s advice, in what was 
called closeting. London was very full. It was expected that the 
Parliament would shortly meet for the despatch of business; and 
many members were in town. The King set himself to canvass them 
man by man. He flattered himself that zealous Tories,—and of such, 
with few exceptions, the House of Commons consisted,—would find 
it difficult to resist his earnest request, addressed to them, not col- 
lectively, but separately, not from the throne, but in the familiarity 
of conversation. ‘he members, therefore, who came to pay their 


duty at Whitehall, were taken aside, and honoured with long private 


interviews. The king pressed them, as they were loyal gentlemen, 
to gratify him in the one thing on which his heart was fixed. The 
question, he said, touched his personal honour. The laws enacted in 
the late reign by factious Parliaments against the Roman Catholics 
had really been aimed at himself. Those laws had put a stigma on 
him, had driven him from the Admiralty, had driven him from the 
Council Board. He had a right to expect that in the repeal of those 
laws all who loved and reverenced him would concur. When he 
found his hearers obdurate to exhortation, he resorted to intimidation 
and corruption. ‘Those who refused to pleasure him in this matter 
were plainly told that they must not expect any mark of his favour. 
Penurious as he was, he opened and distributed his hoards. Several 
of those who had been invited to confer with him left his bedcham- 
ber carrying with them money received from the royal hand. The 
- Judges, who were at this time on their spring circuits, were directed 
by the King to see those members who remained in the country, and 
to ascertain the intentions of each. ‘The result of this investigation 


was that a great majority of the House of Commons seemed fully — 


— — — $$$ se 2a 


* Wodrow, Appendix, vol. ii. Nos, 128, 129, 132. 


ES 


7 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 5 571 


determined to oppose the measures of the Court.* Among those 


_ whose firmness excited general admiration was Arthur Herbert, bro- 


ther of the Chief Justice, member for Dover, Master of the Robes, 
and Rear Admiral of England. Arthur Herbert was much loved by 
the sailors, and was reputed one of the best of the aristocratical class 
of naval officers. It had been generally supposed that he would 
readily comply with the royal wishes: for he was heedless of religion: 
he was fond of pleasure and expense: he had no private estate: his 
places brought him in four thousand poundsa year: and he had long 


_ been reckoned among the most devoted personal adherents of James. 


When, however, the Rear Admiral was closeted, and required to pro- 
mise that he would vote for the repeal of the Test Act, his answer 
was, that his honour and conscience would not permit him to give 
any such pledge. ‘‘ Nobody doubts your honour,” said the King: 
**but a man who lives as you do ought not to talk about his con- 
science.” ‘To this reproach, a reproach which came with a bad grace 
from the lover of Catharine Sedley, Herbert manfully replied, ‘‘I 
have my faults, sir: but I could name people who talk much more 
about conscience than I am in the habit of doing, and yet lead lives 
as loose as mine.” He was dismissed from all his places; and the 
account of what he had disbursed and received as Master of the 
Robes was scrutinised with great and, as he complained, with unjust 
severity. + 

It was now evident that all hope of an alliance between the 
Churches of England and of Rome, for the purpose of sharing offices 
and emoluments, and of crushing the Puritan sects, must be aban- 
doned. Nothing remained but to try a coalition between the Church 
of Rome and the Puritan sects against the Church of England. 

On the eighteenth of March the King informed the Privy Council 


that he had determined to prorogue the Parliament till the end of 


November, and to grant, by his own authority, entire liberty of con 
science to all his subjects.{| On the fourth of April appeared the 
memorable Declaration of Indulgence. 

In this Declaration the King avowed that it was his earnest wish 
to see his people members of that Church to which he himself be- 
longed. But, since that could not be, he announced his intention to 
protect them in the free exercise of their religion. He repeated all. 
those phrases which, eight years before, when he was himself an op- 
pressed man, had been familiar to his lips, but which he had ceased 
to use from the day on which a turn of fortune had put it into his 


* Barillon, ee 1686-7; Van Citters, Feb. 15-25; Reresby’s Memoirs; Bon- 
ar. 10, 
repaux, per 1687. 

+ Barillon, March 14-24, 1687; Lady Russell to Dr. Fitzwilliam, April 1; Burnet, 
i. 671, 672. The conversation is somewhat differently related in the Life of James, 
ii, 204. But that passage is not part of the King’s own memoirs. 

+ London Gazette, Mar. 21, 1686-7, 


572 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


power to be an oppressor. He had long been convinced, he said, 
that conscience was not to be forced, that persecution was unfavour- 
able to population and to trade, and fhat it never attained the ends 
which persecators had in view. He repeated his promise, already 
often repeated and often violated, that he would protect the Hstab- 
lished Church in the enjoyment of her legal rights. He then pro- 
ceeded to annul, by his own sole authority, a long series of statutes, 
He suspended all penal laws against all classes of Nonconformists. — 
He authorised both Roman Catholics and Protestant Dissenters toe 

perform their worship publicly. He forbade his subjects, on pain of 
his highest displeasure, to molest any religious assembly. He also 
abr ogated all those Acts which imposed any religious test as a quali-- 
fication for any civil or military office.* 

That the Declaration of Indulgence was unconstitutional is a point 
on which both the great English parties have always been entirely 
agreed. Every person capable of reasoning on.a political question 
must perceive that a monarch who is competent to issue such a Dec- 
laration is nothing less than an absolute monarch. Nor is it possible 
to urge in defence of this act of James those pleas by which many 
arbitrary acts of the Stuarts have been vindicated or excused. It 
cannot be said that he mistook the bounds of his prerogative because 
they had not been accurately ascertained. For the truth is that he 
trespassed with a recent landmark full in his view. Fifteen years 
before that time, a Declaration of Indulgence had been put forth by 
his brother with the advice of the Cabal. That Declaration, when 
compared with the Declaration of James, might be called modest and 
cautious. The Declaration of Charles dispensed only with penal 
laws. The Declaration of James dispensed also with all religious tests. 
The Declaration of Charles permitted the Roman Catholics to cele- 
brate their worship in private dwellings only. Under the Declara- 
tion of James they might build and decorate tempies, and even walk 
in procession along Fleet Street with crosses, images, and censers. 
Yet the Declaration of Charles had been pronounced illegal in the 
most formal manner. The Commons had resolved that the King 
had no power to dispense with statutes in matters ecclesiastical. 
Charles had ordered the obnoxious instrument to be cancelled in his 
presence, had torn off the seal with his own hand, and had, both by 
message under his sign manual, and with his own lips from his throne 
in full Parliament, distinctly promised the two Houses that the step 
svhich had given so much offence should never be drawn into pre- 
cedent. The two Houses had then, without one dissentient voice, 
joined in thanking him for this compliance with their wishes. No 
constitutional question had ever been decided more deliberately, 
more clearly, or with more harmonious consent. 

The defenders of James have frequently pleaded in his excuse the 


* London Gazette, April 7, 1687. 


a 


a 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 578 


judgment of the Court of King’s Bench, on the information collu- 


sively laid against Sir Edward Hales: but the plea is of no value. 
That judgment James had notoriously obtained by solicitation, by 
threats, by dismissing scrupulous magistrates, and by placing on the 
bench other magistrates more courtly. And yet that judgment, 
though generally regarded by the bar and by the nation as unconsti- 


tutional, went only to this extent, that the Sovereign might, for 
special reasons of state, grant to, individuals by name exemptions 


from disabling statutes. ‘That he could by one sweeping edict au- 
thorise all his subjects to disobey whole volumes of laws, no tribunal 
had ventured, in the face of the solemn parliamentary decision of 
1673, to affirm. . 

Such, however, was the position of parties that James’s Declaration 
of Indulgence, though the most audacious of all the attacks made by 
the Stuarts on public freedom, was well calculated to please that very 
portion of the community by which all the other attacks of the 
Stuarts on public freedom had been most strenuously resisted. It 
could scarcely be hoped that the Protestant Nonconformist, separated 
from his countrymen by a harsh code harshly enforced, would be 
inclined to dispute the validity of a decree which relieved him from 
intolerable grievances. A cool and philosophical observer would un- 
doubtedly have pronounced that all the evil arising from all the in- 
tolerant laws which Parliaments had framed was not to be compared 
to the evil which would be produced by a transfer of the legislative 
power from the Parliament to the Sovereign. But such coolness and 
philosophy are not to be expected from men who are smarting under 
present pain, and who are tempted by the offer of immediate ease. 
A Puritan divine might not indeed be able to deny that the dispens- 
ing power now claimed by the Crown was inconsistent with the fun- 
damental principles of the constitution. But he might perhaps be 
excused if he asked, What was the constitution to him? The Act of 
Uniformity had ejected him, in spite of royal promises, from a bene- 
fice which was his freehold, and had reduced him to beggary and °* 
dependence. The Five Mile Act had banished him from his dwell- 
ing, from his relations, from his friends, from almost all places of 
public resort. Under the Conventicle Act his goods had been dis- 
trained; and he had been flung intoone noisome gaol after another 
among highwaymen and housebreakers. Out of prison, he had con- 
stantly had the officers of justice on his track; he had been forced to 
pay hushmoney to informers: he had stolen, in ignominious dis- 
guises, through windows and trap-doors, to meet his flock, and had, 
while pouring the baptismal water, or distributing the eucharistic 
bread, been anxiously listening for the signal that the tipstaves were 
approaching. Was it not mockery to call on a man thus plundered 
and oppressed to suffer martyrdom for the property and liberty of 
his plunderers and oppressors? The Declaration, despotic as it might 
seem to his prosperous neighbours, brought deliverance to him. He- 

M. E. i.—19 


574 f HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


was called upon to make his choice, not between freedom and slay. 
ery, but between two yokes; and he might not unnaturally think the 
yoke of the King lighter than that of the Church. 

While thoughts like these were working in the minds of many 
Dissenters, the Anglican party was in amazement and terror. This 
new turn in affairs was indeed alarming. The House of Stuart 
leagued with republican and regicide sects against the old Cavaliers 
of England; Popery leagued with Puritanism against an ecclesiasti- 
cal system with which the Puritans had no quarrel, except it had 
retained too much that was Popish; these were portents which con- 


founded all the calculations of statesmen. The Church was then to — 


be attacked at once on every side; and the attack was to be under 
the direction of him who, by her constitution, was her head. She 
might well be struck with surprise and dismay. And mingled with 
surprise and dismay came other bitter feelings; resentment against 
the perjured Prince whom she had served too well, and remorse for 
the cruelties in which he had been her accomplice, and for which he 
was now, as it seemed, about to be her punisher. Her chastisement 
was just. She reaped that which she had sown. After the Restora- 
tion, when her power was at the height, she had breathed nothing 


but vengeance. She had encouraged, urged, almost compelled the ~ 


Stuarts to requite with perfidious ingratitude the recent services of 
the Presbyterians. Had she, in that season of her prosperity, pleaded 
as became her, for her enemies, she might now, in her distress, have 
found them her friends. Perhaps it was not yet too late.. Perhaps 
she might still be able to turn the tactics of her faithless oppressor 
against himself. There was among the Anglican clergy a moderate 
party which had always felt kindly towards the Protestant Dis- 
senters. That party was not large; but the abilities, acquirements, 
and virtues of those who belonged to it made it respectable. It 
had been regarded with little favour by the highest ecclesiastical dig- 
nitaries, and had been mercilessly reviled by bigots of the school of 
Laud: but from the day on which the Declaration of Indulgence 
appeared to the day on which the power of James ceased to inspire 
terror, the whole Church seemed to be animated by the spirit, and 
guided by the counsels, of the calumniated Latitudinarians. 

Then followed an auction, the strangest that history has recorded. 
On one side the King, on the other the Church, began to bid eagerly 
against each other for the favour of those whom up to that time King 


and Church had combined to oppress. The Protestant Dissenters, — 


who, a few months before, had been a despised and proscribed class, 
now held the balance of power. The harshness with which they had 
been treated was universally condemned. ‘The Court tried to throw 
all the blame on the hierarchy. The hierarchy flung it back on the 
Court. The King declared that he had unwillingly persecuted the 
separatists only because his affairs had been in such a state that he 


could not venture to disoblige the established clergy. The estab- 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 575 


lished clergy protested that they had borne a part in severity uncon- 


enial to their feelings only from deference to the authority of the 

ing. The King got together a collection of stories about rectors 
and vicars who had by threats of persecution wrung money out of 
Protestant Dissenters. He talked on this subject much and publicly: 
he threatened to institute an inquiry which would exhibit the par- 
sons in their true character to the whole world; and he actually 
issued several commissions empowering agents on whom he thought 
that he could depend to ascertain the amount of the sums extorted in 
different parts of the country by professors of the dominant religion 
from sectaries. The advocates of the Church, on the other hand, 
cited instances of honest parish priests who had been reprimanded 
and menaced by the Court for recommending toleration in the pul- 
pit, and for refusing to spy out and hunt down little congregations 
of Nonconformists. The King asserted that some of the Churchmen 
whom he had closeted had offered to make large concessions to the 
Catholics, ori condition that the persecution of the Puritans might 
go on. The accused Churchmen vehemently denied the truth of 
this charge, and alleged that, if they would have complied with what 
he demanded for his own religion, he would most gladly have suf- 
fered them to indemnify themselves by harassing and pillaging Prot- 


-estant Dissenters.* 


The Court had changed its face. The scarf and cassock could 
hardly appear there without calling forth sneers and malicious whis- 
pers. Maids of honour forebore to giggle, and Lords of the Bed- 
chamber bowed low, when the Puritanical visage and the Puritanical 
garb, so long the favourite subjects of mockery in fashionable circles, 
were seen in the galleries. Taunton, which had been during two 
generations the stronghold of the Roundhead party in the West, 
which had twice resolutely repelled the armies of Charles the First, 
which had risen as oné man to support Monmouth, and which had 
been turned into a shambles by Kirke and Jeffreys, seemed to have 
suddenly succeeded to the place which Oxford had once occupied in 
the royal favour.t The King constrained himself to show even 
fawning courtesy to eminent Dissenters. To some he offered money, 
to some municipal honours, to some pardons for their relations and 
friends, who, having been implicated in the Rye House plot, or havy- 
ing joined the standard of Monmouth, were now wandering on the 
Continent, or toiling among the sugar canes of Barbadoes. He 
affected even to sympathise with the kindness which the English 


* Warrant Book of the Treasury. See particularly the instructions dated 
March 8, 1687-8, Burnet, i. 715; Reflections on His Majesty’s Proclamation for a 
Toleration in Scotland; Letters containing some Reflections on His Majesty’s 
Declaration for Liberty of Conscience; Apology for the Church of England with 


_ relation to the spirit of Persecution for which she is accused, 1687-8. Butit is 


Ampossible for me to cite all the pamphlets from which I have formed my notion 
of the state of parties at this time. 
+ Letter to a Dissenter. 


/ 
576 HYSTORY OF ENGLAND. 


Puritans felt for their foreign brethren. A second and a third pro- 
clamation were published at Edinburgh, which greatly extended the 
nugatory toleration granted to the Presbyterians by the edict of 
February.* The banished Huguenots, on whom the King had 
frowned during many months, and whom he had defrauded of the 
alms contributed by the nation, were now relieved and caressed. 
An Order in Council was issued appealing again in their behalf to 
the public liberality. The rule which required them to qualify 
themselves for the receipt of charity, by conforming to the Anglican 
worship, seems to have been at this time silently abrogated; and the 
defenders of the King’s policy had the effrontery to affirm that this 
rule, which, as we know from the best evidence, was really devised 
by himself in concert with Barillon, had been adopted at the instance 
of the prelates of the Established Church.* 

While the King was thus courting his old adversaries, the friends 
of the Church were not less active. Of the acrimony and scorn with 
which prelates and priests had, since the Restoration, been in the 
habit of treating the sectaries scarcely a trace was discernible. ‘Those 
who had lately been designated as schismatics and fanatics were now 
dear fellow Protestants, weak brethren it might be, but still breth- 
ren, whose scruples were entitled to tender regard. If they would 
but be true at this crisis to the cause of the English constitution and 
of the reformed religion, their generosity should be speedily and 
largely rewarded. They should have, instead of an indulgence 
which was of no legal validity, a real indulgence, secured by Act of 
Parliament. Nay, many churchmen, who had hitherto been dis- 
tinguished by their inflexible attachment to every gesture and every 
word prescribed in the Book of Common Prayer, now declared 
themselves favourable, not only to toleration, but even to comprehen- 
sion. The dispute, they said, about surplices and attitudes, had too 
long divided those who were agreed as to the essentials of religion. 
When the struggle for life and death against the common enemy was 
over, it would be found that the Anglican clergy would be ready to 
make every fair concession. If the Dissenters would demand only 
what was reasonable, not only civil but ecclesiastical dignities would 
be open to them; and Baxter and Howe would be able, without 
any stain on their honour or their conscience, to sit on the episcopal 
bench. 

Of the numerous pamphlets in which the cause of the Court and 
the cause of the Church were at this time eagerly and anxiously 
pleaded before the Puritan, now, by a strange turn of fortune, the 
arbiter of the fate of his persecutors, one only is still remembered, 
the Letter to a Dissenter. In this masterly little tract, all the argu- 


* Wodrow, Appendix, vol. ii. Nos. 182, 134. 
+ London Gazette, April 21, 1687; Animadversions on a late paper entituled A 
Letter to a Dissenter, by H. C. (Henry Care), 1687. a 


\ 
HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 577 


- ments which could convince a Nonconformist that it was his duty 
_ and his interest to prefer an alliance with the Church to an alliance 
with the Court, were condensed into the smallest compass, arranged 
in the most perspicuous order, illustrated with lively wit, and en- 
forced by aneloquence earnest indeed, yet never in its utmost vehe 
_mence transgressing the limits of exact good sense and good breed- 
ing. The effect of this paper was immense, for, as it was only a 
single sheet, more than twenty thousand copies were circulated by 
the post; and there was no corner of the kingdom in which the 
effect was not felt. Twenty-four answers were published: but the 
town pronounced that they were all bad, and that Lestrange’s was 
the worst of the twenty-four.* The government was greatly irri- 
tated, and spared no pains to discover the author of the Letter: but 
it was found impossible to procure legal evidence against him. 
Some imagined that they recognised the sentiments and diction of 
Temple.+ But in truth that amplitude and acuteness of intellect, 
that vivacity of fancy, that terse and energetic style, that placid 
dignity, half courtly half philosophical, which the utmost excitement 
of conflict could not for a moment derange, belonged to Halifax, and | 
to Halifax lone. 

The Dissenters wavered; nor is it any reproach to them that they 
did so. They were suffering; and the King had given them relief. 
Some eminent pastors had emerged from confinement; and others had 
ventured to return from exile. Congregations, which had hitherto 
met only by stealth and in darkness, now assembled at noonday, and 
sang psalms aloud in the hearing of magistrates, churchwardens, and 
constables. Modest buildings for the worship of God after the Puri- 
tan fashion began to rise all over England. An observant traveller 
wil still remark the date of 1687 on some of the oldest meeting 
houses. Nevertheless the offers of the Church were, to a prudent 
Dissenter, far more attractive than those of the King. The Declara- 
tion was, in the eye of the law, anullity. It suspended the penal 
statutes against nonconformity only for so long a time as the funda- 
mental principles of the constitution and the rightful authority of 
the legislature should remain suspended. What was the value of 
privileges which must be held by a tenure at once so ignominious 
and so insecure? There might soon be a demise of the crown. A 
sovereign attached to the established religion might sit on the throne. 
A Parliament composed of Churchmen might be assembled. How 
deplorable would then be the situation of Dissenters who had been 
in league with Jesuits against the constitution! The Church of- 
fered an indulgence very different from that granted by James, an 


* Lestrange’s Answer toa Letter to a Dissenter; Care’s Animadversions on 
A Letter to a Dissenter: Dialogue between Harry and Roger; that is tosay, 
Harry Care and Roger Lestrange i . wake 

+The letter was signed T. W. Care says, in his animadversions, ‘‘ This Sir 
Politic T. W.,or W. T , for some critics think that the truer reading.” 


578 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


indulgence as valid and as sacred as the Great Charter. Both the 
contending parties promised religious liberty to the separatist but 
one party required him to purchase it by sacrificing civil liberty, 
the other party invited him to enjoy civil and religious liberty to- 
gether. 

For these reasons, even if it could have been believed that the 
Court was sincere, a Dissenter might reasonably have determined to 
cast in his lot with the Church. ut what guarantee was there for 
the sincerity of the Court? All men knew what the conduct of 
James had been up to that very time. It was not impossible, indeed, 
that a persecutor might be convinced by argument and by experi 
ence of the advantages of toleration. But James did not pretend to 
have been recently convinced. On the contrary, he omitted no 
opportunity of protesting that he had, during many years, been, on 
eette aoe adverse to all intolerance. Yet, within a few months, he 

ad persecuted men, women, young girls, to the death for their 
religion. Had he been acting against light and against the convic- 
tions of his conscience then? Or was he uttering a deliberate false 
_hood now? From this dilemma there was no escape ; and either of 
the two supposition was fatal to the King’s character for honesty 
It was notorious also that he had been completely subjugated by the 
Jesuits. Only a few days before the publication of the Indulgence, 
that order had been honoured, in spite of the well known wishes of 
the Holy See, with a new mark of his confidence and approbation. 
His confessor, Father Mansuete, a Franciscan, whose mild temper 
and irreproachable life commanded general respect, but who had 
long been hated by Tyrconnel and Petre, had been discarded. The 
vacant place had been filled by an Englishman named Warner, who 
had apostatised from the religion of his country and had turned 
Jesuit. To the moderate Roman Catholics and to the Nuncio this 
change was far from agreeable. By every Protestant it was regarded 
as a proof that the dominion of the Jesuits over the royal mind was 
absolute.* Whatever praises those fathers might justly claim, flat 
tery itself could not ascribe to them either wide liberality or strict 
veracity. That they had never scrupled, when the interest of their 
Order was at stake, to call in the aid of the civil sword, or to violate 
the laws of truth and of good faith, had been proclaimed to the 
world not only by Protestant accusers, but by men whose virtue and 
genius were the glory of the Church of Rome. It was incredible 
that a devoted disciple of the Jesuits should be on principle zealous 
for freedom of conscience; but it was neither incredible nor improbable 
that he might think himself justified in disguising his real sentiments, 
in order to render a service to his religion. It was certain that the King 


— 


Feb 28 


* Ellis Correspondence, March 15, July 27, 1686; Barillon, " March 3-18, 


ar, 10, 
6-16, 1687, Ronquillo, March 9-19, 1687; in the Mackintosh Collection. 


~ 


; 


4 


vt 
- 
z 
F) 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 579 


at heart preferred the Churchmen to the Puritans, It was certain 
that, while he had any hope of gaining the Churchmen, he had never 
shown the smallest kindness to the Puritans. Could it then be 
doubted that, if the Churchmen would even now comply with his 
wishes, he would willingly sacrifice the Puritans? His word, re- 
peatedly pledged, had not restrained him from invading the legal 
rights of that clergy which had given such signal proofs of affection 
and fidelity to his house. What security then could his word 
afford to sects divided from him by the recollection of a thousand in- 
expiable wounds inflicted and endured? 

When the first agitation produced by the publication of the In- 
dulgence had subsided, it appeared that a breach had taken place in 
the Puritan Sone The minority, headed by a few busy men whose 
judgment was defective or was biassed by interest, supported the 

ing. Henry Care, who had long been the bitterest and most active 
pamphleteer among the Nonconformists, and who had, in the days 
of the Popish plot, assailed James with the utmost fury in a weekly 
journal entitled the Packet of Advice from Rome, was now as loud 
in adulation as he had formerly been in calumny and insult.* The 
chief agent who was employed by the government to manage the 
Presbyterians was Vincent Alsop, a divine of some note both asa 
preacher and asa writer. His son, who had incurred the penalties 


_ of treason, received a pardon; and the whole influence of the father 


was thus engaged on the side of the Court.+ With Alsop was joined 
Thomas Rosewell. Rosewell had, during that persecution of the 
Dissenters which followed the detection of the Rye House plot, 
been falsely accused of preaching against the government, had been 
tried for his life by Jeffreys, and had, in defiance of the clearest 
evidence, been convicted by a packed jury. The injustice of the 
verdict was so gross that the very courtiers cried shame. One Tory 

entleman who had heard the trial went instantly to Charles, and 

eclared that the neck of the most loyal subject in England would 
not be safe if Rosewell suffered. The jurymen themselves were 
stung by remorse when they thought over what they had done, and 
exerted themselves to save the life of the prisoner. At length a 
pardon was granted: but Rosewell remained bound under heavy re- 
cognisances to good behaviour during life, and to periodical appear- 
ance in the Court of King’s Bench. His recognisances were now 
discharged by the royal command; and in this way his services were 
secured. t 

The business of gaining the Independents was principally en- 


* Wood’s Athenss Oxonienses; Observator; Heraclitus Ridens, passim. But 
Care’s own writings 1urnish the best materials for an estimate of his character. 
+ Calamy’s Account of the Ministers ejected or silenced after the Restoration 
in Northamptonshire; Wood’s Athens Oxonienses; Biographia Britannica. 
i: State Trials; Samuel Rosewell’s Life of Thomas Rosewell, 1718; Calamy’s 
ecount, 


580 - HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


trusted to one of their ministers named Stephen Lobb. Lobb was 6 
weak, violent, and ambitious man. He had gone such lengths in 
opposition to the government, that he had been by name proscribed 
in several proclamations. He now made his peace, and went as far 
in servility as he had ever done in faction. He joined the Jesuitical 
cabal, and eagerly recommended measures from which the wisest 
and most honest Roman Catholics recoiled. It was remarked that he 
was constantly at the palace and frequently in the closet, that he 
lived with a splendour to which the Puritan divines were little ac- 
customed, and that he was perpetually surrounded by suitors im- 
ploring his interest to procure them offices or pardons.* 

With Lobb was closely connected William Penn. Penn had never 
been a strongheadedman. The life which he had been leading during 
two years had not alittle impaired his moral sensibility; and if his 
conscience ever reproached him, he comforted himself by repeatin 
that he had a good and noble end in view, and that he was not said 
for his services in money. 

By the influence of these men, and of others less conspicuous, ad- 
dresses of thanks to the King were procured from several bodies of 
Dissenters. ‘Tory writers have with justice remarked that the lan- 
guage of these compositions was as fulsomely servile as anything 
that couid be found in the most florid eulogies pronounced by 
Bishops on the Stuarts. But, on close enquiry, it will appear that 
the disgrace belongs to but a smail part of the Puritan party. There 
was scarcely a market town in England without at least a knot of 
separatists. No exertion was spared to induce them to express their 
gratitude for the Indulgence. Circular ietters, imploring them to. 
sign, were sent to every corner of the kingdom in such numbers that 
the mail bags, it was sportively said, were too heavy for the post 
horses. Yet all the addresses which could be obtained from all the 
Presbyterians, Independents, and Baptists scattered over England 
did not in six months amount to sixty; nor is there any reason to be- 
lieve that these addresses were numerously signed.¢ One of the 
most adulatory was that of the Quakers, and Penn presented it with 
speech more adulatory still.t 

The great body of Protestant Nonconformists, firmly attached to 
civil liberty, and distrusting the promises of the King and of the 
Jesuits, steadily refused to return thanks for a favour, which, it might 
well be suspected, concealed a snare. This was the temper of all the 
most illustrious chiefs of the party. One of these was Baxter. He 
had, as we have seen, been brought to trial soon after the accession of 
James, had been brutally insulted by Jeffreys, and had been convict- 
ed by a jury, such as the courtly Sheriffs of those times were in the 


* London Gazette, March 15, 1685-6; Nichols’s Defence of the Church of Eng 
land; Pierce’s Vindication of the Dissenters. 

+ The Addresses will be found in the London Gazettes. 

+ London Gazette, May 26, 1687; Life of Penn prefixed to his Works, 1726 


- 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 581 


habit of selecting. Baxter had been about a year and a half in prison 
when the Court began to think seriously of gaining the Nonconform- 
ists. He was not only set at liberty, but was informed that, if he 
chose to reside in London, he might do so without fearing that the 
Five Mile Act would be enforced against him. The government 
probably hoped that the recollection of past sufferings and the sense 
of present ease would produce the same effect on him as on Rosewell 
and Lobb. The hope was disappointed. Baxter was neither to be 
corrupted nor to be deceived. He refused to join in any address of 
thanks for the Indulgence, and exerted all his influence to promote 
good feeling between the Church and the Presbyterians.* 

If any man stood higher than Baxter in the estimation of the Prot- 
estant Dissenters, that man was John Howe. Howe had, like Bax- 
ter, been personally a gainer by the recent change of policy. The 
same tyranny which had flung Baxter into gaol had driven Howe into 
banishment; and, soon after Baxter had been let out of the King’s 
Bench Prison, Howe returned from Utrecht to England. It was ex- 
pected at Whitehall that Howe would exert in favour of the Court 
all the authority which he possessed over his brethren. The King 
himself condescended to ask the help of the subject whom he had 
oppressed. Howe appears to have hesitated: but the influence of the 
Hampdens, with whom he was on terms of close intimacy, kept him 
steady to the cause of the constitution. A meeting of Presbyterian 


. ministers was held at his house, to consider the state of affairs, and to 


determine on the course to be adopted. There was great anxiety at 
the palace to know the result. Two royal messengers were in attend- 
ance during the discussion. They returned with the unwelcome 
news that Howe had declared himself decidedly adverse to the dis- 
pensing power, and that he had, after long debate, carried with him 
the majority of the assembly.t+ 

To the names of Baxter and Howe must be added the name of a 
man far below them in station and in acquired knowledge, but in 
virtue their equal, and in genius their superior, John Bunyan. Bun- 


, - a had been bred a tinker, and had served as a private soldier in the 


arliamentary army. larly in his life he had been fearfully tortured 
by remorse for his youthful sins, the worst of which seem, however, 
to have been such as the world thinks venial. His keen sensibility 
and his powerful imagination made his internal conflicts singularly 
terrible. He fancied that he was-under sentence of reprobation, that 
he had committed blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, that he had sold 
Christ, that he was actually possessed by ademon. Sometimes loud 
voices from heaven cried out to warn him. Sometimes fiends whis- 
pered impious suggestions in his ear. He saw visions of distant 


* Calamy’s Life of Baxter. 
+ Calamy’s Life of Howe. The share which the Hampden family had in the 


matter I learned from a letter of Johnstone of Waristoun, dated June 13, 1688, 


582 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. Z 
mountain tops, on which the sun shone brightly, but from which he 
was separated by a waste of snow. He felt the Devil behind him 
pulling his clothes. He thought that the brand of Cain had been set 
upon him. He feared that he was about to burst asunder like Judas. 
His mental agony disordered his health. One day he shook like a man 
in the palsy. On another day he felt a fire within his breast. It is 
difficult to understand how he survived sufferings so intense, and so 
long continued. At length the clouds broke. From the depths of 
despair the penitent passed to a state of serene felicity. An irresisti- 
ble impulse now urged him to impart to others the blessing of which 
he was himself possessed.* He joined the Baptists, and became a 
reacher and writer. His education had been that of a mechanic. 
Te knew no language but the English, as it was spoken by the com- 
mon people. He had studied no great model of composition, with 
the exception, an important exception undoubtedly, of our noble 
translation of the Bible. Hisspelling was bad. He frequently trans- 
gressed the rules of grammar. Yet his native force of genius, and | 
his experimental knowledge of all the religious passions, from de- 
spair to ecstasy, amply supplied in him the want of learning. His 
rude oratory roused and melted hearers who listened without interest 
to the laboured discourses of great logicians and Hebraists. His 
books were widely circulated among the humbler classes. One of 
them, the Pilgrim’s Progress, was, in his own lifetime, translated into 
several foreign languages. It was, however, scarcely known to the 
learned and polite, and had been, during more than a century, the de- 
light of pious cottagers and artisans before it took its proper place, as 
a Classical work, in libraries. At length critics condescended to in- 
quire where the secret of so wide and so durable a popularity lay. 
They were compelled to own that the ignorant multitude had judged 
- more correctly than the learned, and that the despised little book was 
really a masterpiece. Bunyan is indeed as decidedly the first of alle- 
gorists as Demosthenes is the first of orators, or Shakespeare the first 
of dramatists. Other allegorists have shown equal ingenuity; but no 
other allegorist has ever been able to touch the heart, and to make 
abstractions objects of terror, pity and of love.+ 
It may be doubted whether any English Dissenter had suffered 
more severely under the penal laws than John Bunyan. Of the 
twenty-seven years which had elapsed since the Restoration, he had 
passed twelve in confinement. He still persisted in preaching: but, 
that he might preach, he was under the necessity of disguising him- 


* Bunyan’s Grace Abounding. 

+ Young classes Bunyan’s prose with Durfey’s poetry. The people of fashion 
in the Spiritual Quixote rank the Pilgrim’s Progress with Jack the Giant-killer. 
Late in the eighteenth century Cowper did not venture to do more than allude 
to the great allegorist:— 

“T name thee not, lest so despised a name, 
Should move a sneer at thy deserved fame.” 


; ‘HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 583 


self like a carter. He was often introduced into meetings through 
back doors, with a smock frock on his back, and a whip in his 
hand. If he had thought only of his own ease and safety, he would 
have hailed the Indulgence with delight. He was now, at length, 
_ free to pray and exhort in open day. His congregation rapidly in- 
creased: thousands hung upon his words; and at Bedford, where he 
ordinarily resided, money was plentifully contributed to build a meet- 
ing house for him. His influence among the common people was 
such that the government would willingly have bestowed on him 
some municipal office: but his vigorous understanding and his stout 
English heart were proof against all delusion and all temptation. He 
felt assured that the proffered toleration was merely a bait intended 
to lure the Puritan party to destruction; nor would he, by accepting 
a place for which he was not legally qualified, recognise the validity 
of the dispensing power. One of the last acts of his virtuous life was 
to decline an interview to which he was invited by an agent of. the 
government.* 
Great as was the authority of Bunyan over the Baptists, that of 
William Kiffin was still greater. Kiffin was the first man among them 
_ in wealth and station. He was in the habit of exercising his spirit- 
ual gifts at their meetings: but he did not live by preaching. He 
traded ey his credit on the Exchange of London stood high; 
and he had accumulated an ample fortune. Perhaps no man could, at 
_ that conjuncture, have rendered more valuable services to the Court. 
_ But between him and the Court was interposed the remembrance of 
_ one terrible event. He was the grandfather of the two Hewlings, 
_ those gallant youths who, of all the victims of the Bloody Assizes, 
_ had been most generally lamented. For the sad fate of one of them 
_ James was in a peculiar manner responsible. Jeffreys had respited 
_ the younger brother. The poor lad’s sister had been ushered by 
Churchill into the royal-presence, and had begged for mercy: but the 
_ King’s heart had been obdurate. The misery of the whole family 
-had been great: but Kiffin was most to be pitied. He was seventy 
years old when he was left desolate, the survivor of those who should, 
have survived him. The heartless and venal sycophants of White- 
hall, judging by themselves, thought that the old man would be easi- 
ly propitiated by an Alderman’s gown, and by some compensation 
in money for the property which his grandsons had forfeited. Penn 
was employed in the work of seduction, but to no purpose.+ The 


* The continuation of Bunyan’s Life appended to his Grace Abounding. 
+ An attempt was made to vindicate Penn’s conduct on this occasion, and to 
fasten on me the charge of having calumniated him. It is asserted that, instead 
of being engaged, on behalf of the government, in the work of seduction, he was 
really engaged, on behalf of Kiffin, in the work of intercession. In support of 
_ this view the following ipa. is triumphantly quoted from Kiffin’s Memoirs 
of himself. ‘‘I used all the means I could to be excused both by some lords 
near the King, and also by Sir Nicholas Butler, and Mr. Penn, But it was allin 


584 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


King determined to try what effect his own civilities would produce, 
Kiffin was ordered to attend at the palace. He found a brilliant cir. 
cle cf noblemen and gentlemen assembled. James immediately came 
to him, spoke to him very graciously, and concluded by saying, ‘‘I 
have put you down, Mr. Kiffin, foran Alderman of London.” The old 
man looked fixedly at the King, burst into tears, and made answer, 
‘Sir, Tam worn out. JI am unfit to serve Your Majesty or the City. 
And, sir, the death of my poor boys broke my heart. That wound is 
as fresh as ever. I shall carry it to my grave.” The King stood 
silent for a minute in some confusion, and then said, ‘‘Mr. Kiffin, 1 
will find a balsam for that sore.” Assuredly James did not mean to’ 
say any thing cruel or insolent: on the contrary, he seems to have 
been in an unusually gentle mood. Yet no speech that is recorded of 
him gives so unfavourable a notion of his character as these few 
words. ‘They are the words of a hardhearted and lowminded man, 
unable to conceive any laceration of the affections for which a place 
or a pension would not be a full compensation.* 

Since Kiffin could not be seduced by blandishments and fair 
promises, it was determined to try what persecution would effect. 
He was told that an information would be filed against him in the 
Crown Office, and he was threatened with a lodging in Newgate. He 
asked the advice of counsel; and the answer which he received was 
that, by accepting office without taking the sacrament according to 
the Anglican ritual, he would make himself legally liable to a fine of 
five hundred pounds, but that, by refusing office, he would make 
himself liable, not legally, but in fact, to whatever fine a servile 
bench of judges might, in direct defiance of the statutes, think fit to 
impose. He might be mulcted in ten, twenty, thirty, thousand 
pounds. His family, which had already suffered so cruelly from two 
confiscations, might be utterly ruined by this third calamity. 
After holding out many weeks, he so far submitted as to take the 
title of Alderman; but he abstained from acting either as a Justice 
of the Peace or as one of the Commission of Lieutenancy which 
commanded the militia of the City.+ 

That section of the dissenting body which was favourable to the 
King’s new policy had from the first been a minority, and soon began 
to diminish. For the Nonconformists perceived in no long time 


vain. . . . .” There the quotation ends, not at a full stop, but at a semi- 
colon. Theremainder of the sentence, which fully bears out all that I have said, 
is carefully suppressed. Kiffin proceeds thus:—‘I was told that they (Nicholas 
and Penn) knew I had an interest that might serve the King, and although they 
knew my sufferings were great, in cutting off my two grandchildren, and losing 
their estate, yet it should be made up to me, both in their estates, and also in 
what honor or advantage I could reasonably desire for myself. But I thank the 
Lord, these proffers were no snare to me.” 

* Kiffin’s Memoirs; Luson’s Letter to Brooke, May 11, 1773, in the Hughes 
Correspondence. 

+ Kiffin’s Memoirs. 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 585 


that their spiritual privileges had been abridged rather than extended 
by the Indulgence. The chief characteristic of the Puritan was 
abhorence of the peculiarities of the Church of Rome. He had 
quitted the Church of England only because he conceived that she 
too much resembled her superb and voluptuous sister, the sor- 
ceress of the golden cup and of the scarlet robe. He now found that 
one of the implied conditions of that alliance which some of his 
pastors had formed with the Court was that the religion of the Court 
should be respectfully and tenderly treated. He soon began to regret 
the days of persecution. While the penal laws were enforced, he 
had heard the words of life in secret and at his peril: but still he had 
heard them. When the brethren were assembled in the inner 
chamber, when the sentinels had been posted, when the doors had 
been locked, when the preacher, in the garb of a butcher or a dray- 
man, had come in over the tiles, then at least God was truly wor- 
shipped. No portion of divine truth was suppressed or softened 
down for any worldly object. All the distinctive doctrines of the 
Puritan theology were fully, and even coarsely, set forth. To the 
Church of Rome no quarter was given. The Beast, the Antichrist, 
the Man of Sin, the mystical Jezebel, the mystical Babylon, were 
the phrases ordinarily employed to describe that august and fasci- 
nating superstition, Such had been once the style of Alsop, of 
Lobb, of Rosewell, and of other ministers who had of late been well 
received at the palace: but such was now their style no longer. 
Divines who aspired to a high place in the King’s favour and confi- 
dence could not venture to speak with asperity of the King’s religion. 
Congregations therefore complained loudly that, since the appearance 
of the Declaration which purported to give them entire freedom of 
_ conscience, they had never once heard the Gospel boldly and faith- 
fully preached. Formerly they had been forced to snatch their 
spiritual nutriment by stealth: but, when they had snatched it, they 
had found it seasoned exactly to their taste. They were now at lib- 
erty to feed: but their food had lost all its savour. They met by 
daylight, and in commodious edifices; but they heard discourses far 
less to their taste than they would have heard from the rector, At 
the parish church the will worship and idolatry of Rome were every 
Snnday attacked with energy: but, at the meeting house, the pastor, 
who had a few months before reviled the established clergy as little 
better than Papists, now carefully abstained from censuring Popery, 
or conveyed his censures in language too delicate to shock even the 
ears of Father Petre. Nor was it possible to assign any creditable 
reason for this change. The Roman Catholic doctrines had under- 
gone no alteration. Within living memory, never had Roman Cath- 
olic priests been so active in the work of making proselytes; never 
had so many Roman Catholic publications issued from the press: 
never had the attention of all who cared about religion been so closely 
fixed on the disputes between the Roman Catholics and the Protes- 


586 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


tants. What could be thought of the sincerity of theologians 
who had never been weary of railing at Popery when Popery 
was comparatively harmless and helpless, and who now, when a time 
of real danger to the reformed faith had arrived, studiously avoided 
uttering one word which could give offence to a Jesuit? ‘Their con 
duct was indeed easily explained. It was known that some of them 
had obtained pardons. It was suspected that others had ob. 
tained money. The prototype might be found in that weak apostle 
who from fear denied the Master to whom he had boastfully pro- 
fessed the firmest attachment, or in that baser apostle who sold his 
Lord for a handful of silver.* 

Thus the dissenting ministers who had been gained by the Court 
were rapidly losing the influence which they had once possessed over 
their brethren. On the other hand, the sectaries found themselves 
attracted by a strong religious sympathy towards those prelates and 
priests of the Church of England who, in spite of royal mandates, 
of threats, and of promises, were waging vigorous war with the 
Church of Rome. The Anglican body and the Puritan body, so long 
separated by a mortal enmity, were daily drawing nearer to each 
other, and every step which they made towards union increased the 
influence of him who was their common head. William was in all 
things fitted to be a mediator between these two great sections of the 
English nation. He could not be said to-be a member of either. 
Yet neither, when in a reasonable mood, could refuse to regard him 
asa friend. His system of theology agreed with that of the Puri- 
tans. At the same time he regarded episcopacy, not indeed as a di- 
vine institution, but as a perfectly lawful and an-eminently useful 
form of Church government. Questions respecting postures, robes, 
festivals, and liturgies, he considered as of no vitalimportance. <A sim- 
ple worship, such as that to which he had been early accustomed, 
would have been most to his personal taste. But he was prepared to 
conform to any ritual which might be acceptable to the nation, and 
insisted only that he should not be required to persecute his brother 
Protestants whose consciences did not permit them to follow his ex- 
ample. Two years earlier he would have been pronounced by 
numerous bigots on both sides a mere Laodicean, neither cold nor 
hot, and fit only to be spewed out. But the zeal which had inflamed 
Churchmen against Dissenters, and Dissenters against Churchmen had 
been so tempered by a common adversity and danger that the luke- 
warmness which had once been imputed to him as a crime was now 


* See, among other contemporary pamphlets, one entitled a Representation 
of the threatening Dangers impending ever Protestants, 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 587 


him from publicly expressing disapprobation of a policy which had 
' a specious show of liberality. Penn had visited Holland in the sum- 
mer of 1686, confident that his eloquence, of which he had a high 
opinion, would prove irresistible. He had harangued on his favour- 
ite theme with a copiousness which tired his hearers out. He had 
assured them that a golden age of religious liberty was approaching: 
whoever lived three years longer would see strange things: he could 
not be mistaken; for he had it from aman who had it from an Angel. 
Penn also hinted that, though he had not come to the Hague with a 
royal commission, he knew the royal mind. There was nothing, he 
was confident, which the uncle would not do to gratify the nephew, 
if only the nephew would, in the manner of the Test Act, gratify the 
uncle. As oral exhortations and promises produced little effect, 
Penn returned to England, and thence wrote to the Hague that His 
Majesty seemed disposed to make large concessions, to live in close 
amity with the Prince, and to settle a handsome income on the Prin- 
cess.* There can indeed be little doubt that James would gladly 
have purchased at a high price the support of his eldest daughter 
and of his son-in-law. But on the subject of the Test, William’s 
resolution was immutable. ‘‘ You ask me,” he said to one of the 
King’s agents, ‘‘to countenance an attack on my own religion. 
I cannot with a safe conscience do it, and I will not, no, not for 
the crown of England, nor for the empire of the world.” These 
words were reported to the King and disturbed him greatly. He 
wrote urgent letters with his own hand. Sometimes he took the 
tone of an injured man. He was the head of the royal family; he 
was as such entitled to expect the obedience of the younger branches; 
and it was very hard that he was to be crossed in a matter on which 
his heart was set. At other times a bait which was thought irresis- 
tible was offered. If William would but give way on this one point, 
the English government would, in return, coéperate with him strenu- 
ously against France. He wasnot to be so deluded. He knew that 
James, without the support of a Parliament, would, even if not un- 
willing, be unable to render effectual service to the common cause of 
Europe; and there could be no doubt that, if a Parliament were as- 
sembled, the first demand of both houses would be that the Declara- 
tion should be cancelled. 

The Princess assented to all that was suggested by her husband. 


* Burnet, i. 693, 694; Avaux, Jan. 10, 1687. Penn’s letters were regularly put, 
by Eee of his Quaker friends who resided at the Hague, into the Prince’s own 

and. 

+ ‘* Le Prince d’Orange, qui avoit éludé jusqu’alors de faire une réponse pos- 
itive, dit. .. . . qu’ilne consentiroit jamais & la suppression de ces loix qui 
avoient été établies pour le maintien et la sureté de la religion Protestante, et 
que sa conscience ne le lui permettoit point, non seulement pour la succession 

uroyaume d’Angleterre, mais méme pour l’empire du monde; en sorte que le 
sie cee ere est plus aigri contre lui qu’il n’a Jamais 6té.’”-—Bonrepaux, June 

+] . 


— 


\ “a 


588 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


Their joint opinion was conveyed to the King in firm but temperate 
terms. They declared that they deeply regretted the course which 
His Majesty had adopted. They were convinced that he had usurped 
a prerogative which did not. by law belong to him. Against that 
usurpation they protested, not only as friends to civil liberty, but as 
members of the royal house, who had a deep interest in maintaining 
the rights of that crown which they might one day wear. For ex- 
perience had shown that in England arbitrary government could not 
fail to produce a reaction even more pernicious than itself; and it 
might reasonably be feared that the nation, alarmed and incensed by 
the prospect of despotism, might conceive a disgust even for consti- 
tutional monarchy. The advice, therefore, which they tendered to 
the King was that he would in all things govern according to law. 
They readily admitted that the law might with advantage be altered 
by competent authority, and that some part of his Declaration well 
deserved to be embodied in an Act of Parliament, They were not 
persecutors. They should with pleasure see Roman Catholics as well 
as Protestant Dissenters relieved in a proper manner from all penal 
statutes. They should with pleasure see Protestant Dissenters ad- 
mitted in a proper manner to civil office. At that point their High- 
nesses must stop. They could not but entertain grave apprehensions 
that, if Roman Catholics were made capable of public trust, great 
evil would ensue; and it was intimated not obscurely that these ap- 
prehensions arose chiefly from the conduct of James.* ‘ 

The opinion expressed by the Prince and Princess respecting the 
disabilities to which the Roman Catholics were subject was that of 
almost all the statesmen and philosophers who were then zealous for 
political and religious freedom. In our age, on the contrary, en- 
lightened men have often pronounced, with regret, that, on this one 
point, William appears to disadvantage when compared with his 
father inlaw. The truth is that some considerations which are ne- 
cessary to the forming of a correct judgment seem to have escaped 
the notice of many writers of the nineteenth century. 

There are two opposite errors into which those who study the 
annals of our country are in constant danger of falling, the error of 
judging the present by the past, and the error of judging the past by 
the present. The former is the error of minds prone to reverence 
whatever is old, the latter of minds readily attracted by whatever is 
new. ‘The former error may perpetually be observed in the reason- 
ings of conservative politicians on the questions of their own day. 
The latter error perpetually infects the speculations of writers of the 
liberal school when they discuss the transactions of an earlier age. 
The former error is the more pernicious ina statesman, and the latter 
in a historian. ‘ 


May 24, 


* Burnet, i. 710; Bonrepaux, 1687, 
June 4, 


ae 
es 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 589 


It is not easy for any person who, in our time, undertakes to treat 
of the revolution which overthrew the Stuarts, to preserve with 
steadiness the happy mean between these two extremes. The question 
whether members of the Roman Catholic Church could be easily ad- 
mitted to Parliament and to office convulsed our country during the 
_ reign of James the Second, was set at rest by his downfall, and having 
slept during more than a century, was revived by that great stirring of 
the human mind which followed the meeting of the National Assembly 
of France. During thirty years the contest went on in both Houses 
of Parliament, in every constituent body, in every social circle. It 
destroyed administrations, broke up parties, made all government in 
one part of the empire impossible, and at length brought us to the 
' verge of civil war. Even when the struggle had terminated, the 
passions to which it had given birth still continued to rage. It was 
scarcely possible for any man whose mind was under the influence of 
those passions to see the events of the years 1687 and 1688 in a per- 
fectly correct light. 

One class of politicians, starting from the true proposition that the 
_ Revolution had been a great blessing to our country, arrived at the 
_ false conclusion that no test which the statesmen of the Revolution 
had thought necessary for the protection of our religion and our 
freedom could be safely abolished. Another class, starting from the 
_ true proposition that the disabilities imposed on the Roman Catholics 
_ had long been productive of nothing but mischief, arrived at the 
false conclusion that there never could have been atime when those 
disabilities were useful and necessary. The former fallacy pervaded 
the speeches of the acute and learned Eldon. ‘The latter was not al- 
_ together without influence even on an intellect so calm and philo- 
sophical as that of Mackintosh. 

erhaps, however, it will be found on examination that we may 
vindicate the course which was unanimously approved by all the 
great English statesmen of the seventeenth century, without question- 
ing the wisdom of the course which was as unanimously approved 
by all the great English statesmen of our own time. . 

Undoubtedly it is an evil that any citizen should be excluded from 
civil employment on account of his religious opinions: but a choice 
between evils is sometimes all that is left to human wisdom. A 
nation may be placed in such a situation that the majority must 
either impose disabilities or submit to them, and that what would, 
under ordinary circumstances, be justly condemned as persecution, 
may fall within the bounds of legitimate selfdefence; and such was 
_ in the year 1687 the situation of England. : 

_ According to the constitution of the realm, James possessed the 
right of naming almost all public functionaries, political, judicial, ec- 
 Clesiastical, military, and naval. In the exercise of this right he was 
not, as our sovereigns now are, under the necessity of acting in 
conformity with the advice of ministers approved by the House of 


590 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


Commons. It was evident therefore that, unless he were strictly bound 
by law to bestow office on none but Protestants, it would be in his 
power to bestow office’ on none but Roman Catholics. The Roman 
Catholics were few in number; and among them was not a single man 
whose services could be seriously missed by the commonwealth. The 
proportion which they bore to the population of England was very 
much smaller than at present. For at present a constant stream of 
emigration runs from Ireland to our great towns: but in the seven- 
teenth century there was not even in London an Irish colony. More 
than forty-nine fiftieths of the inhabitants of the kingdom, more than 
forty-nine fiftieths of the property of the kingdom, almost all the po- 
litical, legal, and military ability and knowledge to be found in the 
kingdom, were Protestant. Nevertheless the King, under a strong 
infatuation, had determined to use his vast patronage as a means of 
making proselytes. To be of his Church was, in his view, the first of 
all qualifications for office. To be of the national Church was a posi- 
tive disqualification. He reprobated, it is true, in language which has 
been applauded by some credulous friends of religious liberty, the 
monstrous injustice of that test which excluded a small minority of 
the nation from public trust: but he was at the same time instituting 
a test which excluded the majority. He thought it hard that a man 
who was a good financier and a loyal subject should be excluded from 
the post of Lord Treasurer merely for being a Papist. But he had 
himself turned out a Lord Treasurer whom he admitted to bea good 
financier and a loyal subject merely for being a Protestant. He had 
repeatedly and distinctly declared his resolution never to put the 
white staffin the hands of any heretic. With many other great offices 
of state he had dealt in the same way. Already the Lord President, 
the Lord Privy Seal, the Lord Chamberlain, the Groom of the Stole, 
the First Lord of the Treasury, the principal Secretary of State, the 
Lord High Commissioner of Scotland, the Chancellor of Scotland, 
the Secretary of Scotland, were, or pretended to be, Roman Catholics. 
Most of these functionaries had been bred Churchmen, and had been 
guilty of apostasy, open or secret, in order to obtain or to keep their 
high places. Every Protestant who still held an important post in 
the government held it in constant uncertainty and fear. It would be 
endless to recount the situations of a lower rank which were filled by 
the favoured class. Roman Catholics already swarmed in every de- 
partment of the public service. They were Lords Lieutenants, 
Deputy Lieutenants, Judges, Justices of the Peace, Commissioners of 
the Customs, Envoys to foreign courts, Colonels of regiments, Goy- 
ernors of fortresses. 'The share which in a few months they had ob- 
tained of the temporal patronage of the crown was much more than 
ten times as great as they would have had under an impartial system. 
Yet this was not the worst. They were made rulers of the Church of 
England. Men who had assured the King that they held his faith 
sate in the High Commission, and exercised supreme jurisdiction in 


de: 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 591 


spiritual things over al] the prelates and priests of the established 
religion. Ecclesiastical benefices of great dignity had been bestowed, 
some on avowed Papists, and some on half concealed Papists. And 
all this had been done while the laws against Popery were still unre- 


_ pealed, and while James had still a strong interest in affecting respect 


for the rights of conscience. What then was his conduct likely to be, 
if his subjects consented to free him, by a legislative act, from even 
the shadow of restraint? Isit possible to doubt that Protestants would 
have been as effectually excluded from employment, by a strictly 
legal use of the royal prerogative, as ever Roman Catholics had been 


_ by Act of Parliament? 


How obstinately James was determined to bestow on the members 
of his own Church a share of patronage altogether out of proportion 
to their numbers and importance is proved by the instructions which, 
in exile and old age, he drew up for the guidance of his son. It is 
impossible to read without mingled pity and derision those effusions 
of a mind on which all the discipline of experience and adversity had 
been exhausted in vain. The Pretender is advised, if ever he should 
reign in England, to make a partition of offices, and carefully to re- 
serve for the members of the Church of Rome a portion which might 
have sufficed for them if they had been one half instead of one fiftieth 
part of the nation. One Secretary of State, one Commissioner of the 
Treasury, the Secretary at War, the majority of the great dignitaries 
of the household, the majority of the officers of the army, are always 
to be Catholics. Such were the designs of James after his perverse 
bigotry had drawn on him a punishment which had appalled the 
whole world. Is it then possible to doubt what his conduct would 
have been if his people, deluded by the empty name of religious lib- 
erty, had suffered him to proceed without any check? 

Even Penn, intemperate and undiscerning as was his zeal for the 
Declaration, seems to have felt that the partiality with which honours 
and emoluments were heaped on Roman Catholics might not unnatu- 
rally excite the jealousy of the nation. He owned that, if the Test 
Act were repealed, the Protestants were entitled to an equivalent, and 
went so far as to suggest several equivalents. During some weeks the 
word equivalent, then lately imported from France, was in the mouths 
of all the coffeehouse orators; but at length a few pages of keen logic 
and polished sarcasm written by Halifax put an end to these idle pro- 
jects. One of Penn’s schemes was that a law should be passed divid- 
ing the patronage of the crown into three equal parts, and that to one 
only of those parts members of the Church of Rome should be ad- 
mitted. Even under such an arrangement the members of the Church 
of Rome would have obtained near twenty times their fair portion 


of official appointments; and yet there is no reason to believe that 


even to such an arrangement the King would have consented. But, 
had he consented, what guarantee could he give that he would adhere 


te his bargain? The dilemma propounded by Halifax was unanswera- 


ese 


592 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


ble. If laws are binding on you, observe the law which now exists. 
If laws are not binding on you, it is idle to offer us a law as a 
security.* 

It is clear, therefore, that the point at issue was not whether secu- 
lar offices should be thrown open to all sects indifferently. While 
James was King it was inevitable that there should be exclusion; and 


the only question was who should be excluded, Papists or Protest- 


ants, the few or the many, a hundred thousand ‘Englishman or five 
millions. 


Such are the weighty arguments by which the conduct of the Prince ~ 


of Orange towards the English Roman Catholics may be reconciled 
with the principles of religious liberty. These arguments, it will be 
observed, have no reference to any part of the Roman Catholic theol- 
ogy. It will also be observed that they ceased to have any force when 
the crown had been settled on a race of Protestant sovereigns, and 
when the power of the House of Commons in the state had become so 
decidedly preponderant that no sovereign, whatever might have been 
his opinions or his inclinations, could have imitated the,example of 
James. The nation, however, after its terrors, its struggles, its nar- 
row escape, was in a suspicious and vindictive mood. Means of de- 
fence therefore which necessity had once justified, and which neces- 
sity alone could justify, were obstinately used long after the necessity 
had ceased to exist, and were not abandoned till vulgar prejudice 
had maintained a contest of many years against reason. But in the 
time of James reason and vulgar prejudice were on the same side. 


The fanatical and ignorant wished to exclude the Roman Catholic ~ 


from office, because he worshipped stocks and stones, because he had 
the mark of the beast, because he had burned down London, because 
he had strangled Sir Edmondsbury Godfrey; and the most judicious 


and tolerant statesman, while smiling at the delusions which imposed » 


on the populace, was led, by a very different road, to the same con- 
clusion. 

The great object of William was now to unite in one body the 
numerous sections of the community which regarded him as their 
common head. In this work he had several able and trusty coad- 
jutors, among whom two were Re useful, Burnet and 
Dykvelt. 

The services of Burnet indeed it was necessary to employ with 
some caution. The kindness with which he had been welcomed at 
the Hague had excited the rage of James. Mary received from her 
father two letters filled with invectives against the insolent and 
seditious divine whom she protected. But these accusations had so 
little effect on her that she sent back answers dictated by Burnet 
himself. At length, in January 1687, the King had recourse to 
stronger measures. Skelton, who had represented the English gov- 


* Johnstone, Jan. 13, 1688; Halifax’s Anatomy of an Equivalent. 


af —_ 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 593 


ernment in the United Provinces, was removed to Paris, and was 
succeeded by Albeville, the weakest and basest of all the members of 
the Jesuitical cabal. Money was Albeville’s one object; and he took 
it from all who offered it. He was paid at once by France and by 
Holland. Nay, he stooped below even the miserable dignity of cor- 
ruption, and accepted bribes so small that they seemed better suited 
to a porter or a lacquey than to an Envoy who had been honoured 
with the English Baronetcy and a foreign marquisate. On one occa- 


_ sion he pocketed very complacently a gratuity of fifty pistoles as the 


price of a service which he had rendered to the States General. 
This man had it in charge to demand that Burnet should no longer 


be countenanced at the Hague. William, who was not inclined to 


part with a valuable friend, answered at first with his usual coldness; 
““T am not aware, sir, that, since the Doctor has been here, he has 
done or said anything of which his Majesty can justly complain.” 
But James was peremptory: the time for an open rupture had not 
arrived; and it was necessary to give way. During more than 
eighteen months Burnet never came into the presence of either the 
Prince or the Princess; but he resided near them: he was fully in- 
formed of all that was passing: his advice was constantly asked: his 
pen was employed on all important occasions; and many of the 
sharpest and most effective tracts which about that time appeared in 
London were justly attributed to him. 

The rage of James flamed high. He had always been more than 
sufficiently prone to the angry passions. But none of his enemies, 
not even those who had conspired against his life, not even those 


who had attempted by perjury to load him with the guilt of treason 


and assassination, had ever been regarded by him with such animosi- 
ty as he now felt for Burnet. His Majesty railed daily at the Doctor 


in unkingly language, and meditated plans of unlawful revenge 


Even blood would not slake that frantic hatred. The insolent divine 
must be tortured before he was permitted to die. Fortunately he 
was by birth a Scot; and in Scotland, before he was gibbeted in the 
Grassmarket, his legs might be dislocated in the boot. Proceedings 
were accordingly instituted against him at Edinburgh: but he had 
been naturalised in Holland: he had married a woman of fortune 
who was a native of that province; and it was certain that his 
adopted country would not deliver him up. It was therefore deter- 
mined to kidnap him. Ruffians were hired with great sums of money 
to perform this perilous and infamous service. An order for three 
thousand pounds on this account was actually drawn up for signa- 
ture in the office of the Secretary of State. Lewis was apprised of 
the design, and took a warm interest in it. He would lend, he said, 
his best assistance to convey the villain to England, and would under- 
take that the ministers of the vengeance of James should find asecure 
asylum in France. Burnet was well aware of his danger; but_timid- 
ity was not among his faults, He published a courageous answer 


- 


594 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


to the charges which had been brought against him at Edinburgh. 
He knew, he said, that it was intended to execute him without a 
trial: but his trust was in the King of Kings, to whom innocent 
blood would not cry in vain, even against the mightiest princes of 
the earth. He gave a farewell dinner to some friends, and, after the 
meal, took solemn leave of them, as a man who was doomed to 
death, and with whom they could no longer safely converse. Never- 
theless he continued to show himself in all the public places of the 
Hague so boldly that his friends reproached him bitterly with his 
foolhardiness.* 

While Burnet was William’s secretary for English affairs in Hol- 
land, Dykvelt had been not less usefully employed in London. Dyk- 
velt was one of a remarkable class of public men who, having been 
bred to politics in the noble school of John De Witt, had, after the 
fall of that great minister, thought that they should best discharge 


their duty to the commonwealth by rallying round the Prince of - 


Orange. Of the diplomatists in the service of the United Provinces 
none was, in dexterity, temper, and manners, superior to Dykvelt. 


In knowledge of English affairs none seems to have been his equal. © 


A pretence was found for despatching him early in the year 1687, to 
England on a special mission with credentials from the States Gen- 
eral. But in truth his embassy was not to the government but to the 
opposition; and his conduct was guided by private instructions 
which had been drawn by Burnet, and approved by William.+ 

_ Dykvelt reported that James was deeply mortified by the conduct 
of the Prince and Princess. ‘‘My nephew’s duty,” said the King, 
‘‘is to strengthen my hands. But he has always taken a pleasure in 
crossing me.” Dykvelt answered that in matters of private concern 
His Highness had shown, and was ready to show, the greatest defer- 
ence to the King’s wishes; but that it was scarcely reasonable to ex- 


* Burnet, i. 726-731; Answer to — a Letters issued out against Dr. Bur- 
u F 
net; Avaux Neg. July 7-17, 14-24, if 1687, Jan. 19-29, 1688; Lewis to Barillon, 


Aug. 7, 
Dec. 30, 1687 i a F ‘ 
Sy neem ; Johnstone of Waristoun, Feb. 21, 1688; Lady Russell to Dr. Fitzwil- 
an. 9, 


liam, Oct. 5, 1687. Asit has been suspected that Burnet, who certainly was not 
in the habit of underrating his ownimportance, exaggerated the danger to which 
he was exposed, I will give the words of Lewis and of Johnstone. ** Qui que ce 
soit,” says Lewis, ‘‘qui entreprenne de penlever en Hollande trouvera non 
seulement une retraite assurée et une entiére protection dans mes états, mais 
aussi toute l’assistance qu’il pourra désirer pour faire conduire surement ce 
scélérat en Angleterre.’ ‘‘ The business of Bamfield (Burnet) is certainly true,” 
says Johnstone. ‘‘No man doubts of it here, and some concerned do not deny 
it. His friends say, they hear he takes no care of himself, but out of vanity to 
show his courage, shows his folly; so that, if ill happen on it, all people will 


laugh at it. Pray tell him so much from Jones (Johnstone). If some could be 


catched making their coup d’essai on him, it will do much to frighten them from 
making any attempt on Ogle (the Prince).”’ 

+ Burnet, i. 708; Avaux Neg. Jan. 3-13, Feb. 6-16, 1687; Van Kampen, Karak- 
terkuade der Vaderlandsche Geschiedenis, 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 595 


pect the aid of a Protestant Prince against the Protestant religion.* 
The King was silenced but not appeased. He saw, with ill humor 
which he could not disguise, that Dykvelt was mustering and drill- 
ing all the various divisions of the opposition with a skill that would 
_ have been creditable to the ablest English statesman, and which was 
marvellous in a foreigner. The clergy were told that they would 
find the Prince a friend to episcopacy and to the Book of Common 
Prayer. The Nonconformists were encouraged to expect from him, 
not only toleration, but also comprehension. Even the Roman Cath- 
olics were conciliated; and some of the most respectable among them 
declared to the King’s face, that they were satisfied with what Dyk- 
velt proposed, and that they would rather have a toleration secured 
by statute, than an illegal and precarious ascendency.+ The chiefs 
of all the important sections of the nation had frequent conferences 
in the presence of the dexterous Envoy. At these meetings the 
sense of the Tory party was chiefly spoken by the Earls of Danby 
and Nottingham. Though more than eight years had elapsed since 
Danby had fallen from power, his name was still great among the 
Old Cavaliers of England; and many even of those Whigs who had 
- formerly persecuted him were now disposed to admit that he had 
suffered for faults not his own, and that his zeal for the prerogative, 
though it had often misled him, had been tempered by two feelings 
which did him honour, zeal for the established religion, and zeal for 
the dignity and independence of his country. He was also highly 
esteemed at the Hague, where it was never forgotten that he was 
the person who, in spite of the influence of France and of the 
Papists, had induced Charles to bestow the hand of the Lady Mary 
on her cousin. 

Daniel Finch, Earl of Nottingham, a nobleman whose name 
will frequently recur in the history of three eventful reigns, 
sprang from a family of unrivalled forensic eminence. One 
of his kinsmen had borne the seal of Charles the First, had pros- 
tituted eminent parts and learning to evil purposes, and had been 
pursued by the vengeance of the Commons of England with Falkland 
at their head. A more honourable renown had in the succeeding 
generation been obtained by Heneage Finch. He had immediately 
after the Restoration been appointed Solicitor General. He had sub- 
sequently risen to be Attorney General, Lord Keeper, Lord Chancel- 
lor, Baron Finch, and Earl of Nottingham. Through this prosperous 
career he had always held the prerogative as high as he honestly or 
decently could; but he had never been concerned in any machinations 
against the fundamental laws of the realm. In the midst of a cor- 
rupt court he had kept his personal integrity unsuljied. He had en- 


* Burnet, i. 711. Dykvelt’s despatches to the States General contain, as far as 
J have seen or can learn, not a word about the real object of his mission. His 
correspondence with the Prince of Orange was strictly private. 

+ Bonrepaux, Sept. 12-22, 1687. 


596 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


joyed high fame as an orator, though his diction, formed on models 
anterior to the civil wars, was, towards the close of his life, pro- 
nounced stiff and pedantic by the wits of the rising generation. In 
Westminster Hall he is still mentioned with respect as the man who 


? ecbepl 


first educed out of the chaos anciently called by the name of equitya . 


new system of jurisprudence, as regular and complete as that which 
is administered by the Judges of the Common Law.* A consider- 
able part of the moral and intellectual character of this great magis- 
trate had descended with the title of Nottingham to his eldest son. 
This son, Earl Daniel, was an honourable and virtuous man. 
Though enslaved by some absurd prejudices, and though liable to 
strange fits of caprice, he cannot be accused of having deviated from 
the path of right in search either of unlawful gain or of unlawful 
pleasure. Like his father he was a distinguished speaker, impressive 
but prolix, and too monotonously solemn. The person of the orator 
was in perfect harmony with his oratory. His attitude was rigidly 
erect: his complexion was so dark that he might have passed for a 
native of a warmer climate than ours; and his harsh features were 
composed to an expression resembling that of a chief mourner at a 
funeral. It was commonly said that he looked rather like a Spanish 
Grandee than like an English gentleman. The nicknames of Dismal, 
Don Dismallo, and Don Diego, were fastened on him by jesters, and 
are not yet forgotten. He had paid much attention to the science by 
which his family had been raised to greatness, and was, for a man 
born to rank and wealth, wonderfully well read in the laws of his 
country. He was a devoted son of the Church, and showed his re- 
spect for her in two ways not usual among those Lords who in his 
time boasted that they were her especial friends, by writing tracts in 
defence of her dogmas, and by shaping his private life according to 
her precepts. Like other zealous churchmen, he had, till recently, 
been a strenuous supporter of monarchical authority. But to the 
policy which had been pursued since the suppression of the Western 
insurrection he was bitterly hostile, and not the less so because his 
younger brother Heneage had been turned out of the office of Solicitor 
General for refusing to defend the King’s dispensing power. + 

With these two great Tory Earls was now united Halifax, the ac- 
complished chief of the Trimmers. Over the mind of Nottingham 
indeed Halifax appears to have had at this time a great ascendency. 
Between Halifax and Danby there was an enmity. which began in the 
court of Charles, and which, at a later period, disturbed the court of 
William, but which, like many other enmities, remained suspended 
_ during the tyranny of James. The foes frequently met in the coun- 
cils held by Dykvelt, and agreed in expressing dislike of the policy of 


* See Lord Campbell’s Life of him. 

+ Johnstone’s Correspondence; Mackay’s Memoirs; Arbuthnot’s John Bull; 
Swift’s writings from 1710 to 1714, passim ; Whiston’s Letter to the Earl of Not- 
tingham and the Earl’s answer. = 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 597 


the government and reverence for the Prince of Orange. The differ- 
ent characters of the two statesmen appeared strongly in their deal- 
ings with the Dutch Envoy. Halifax showed an admirable talent 
for disquisition, but shrank from coming to any bold and irrevocable - 
_ decision. Danby, far less subtle and eloquent, displayed more 
energy, resolution, and practical sagacity. 

Several eminent Whigs were in constant communication with 
Dykvelt: but the heads of the great houses of Cavendish and Russell 
could not take quite so active and prominent a part as might have 
been expected from their station and their opinions. The fame and 
fortunes of Devonshire were at that moment under acloud. He had 
an unfortunate quarrel with the Court, arising, not from a public 
and honourable cause, but from a private brawl in which even his 
warmest friends could not pronounce him altogether blameless. He 
had gone to Whitehall to pay his duty, and had there been insulted 
by aman named Colepepper, one of a set of bravoes who infested the 
purlieus of the court, and attempted to curry favour with the gov- 
ernment by affronting members of the opposition. The King him- 
self expressed great indignation at the manner in which one of his 
most distinguished peers had been treated under the royal roof; and 
Devonshire was pacified by an intimation that the offender should 
never again be admitted into the palace. The interdict, however, was 
soon taken off. ‘The Earl’s resentment revived. His servants took 
up his cause. Hostilities such as seemed to belong to aruder age 
disturbed the streets of Westminster. The time of the Privy Council 
was occupied by the criminations and recriminations of the adverse 
parties. Colepepper’s wife declared that she and her husband went 
in danger of their lives, and that their house had been assaulted by 
ruffians in the Cavendish livery. Devonshire replied that he had 
been fired at from Colepepper’s windows. This was vehemently de- 
nied. A pistol, it was owned, loaded with gunpowder, had been dis- 
charged. But this had been done in a moment of terror merely for 
the purpose of alarming the Guards. While this feud was at the 
height the Earl met Colepepper in the drawingroom at Whitehall, and 
fancied that he saw triumph and defiance in the bully’s countenance. 
Nothing unseemly passed in the royal sight; but, as soon as the 
enemies had left the presence chamber, Devonshire proposed that 
they should instantly decide their dispute with their swords.. This 
challenge was refused. Then the high spirited peer forgot the re- 
spect which he owed to the place where he stood and to his own 
character, and struck Colepepper in the face with a cane. All 
classes agreed in condemning this actas most indiscreet and indecent, 
nor could Devonshire himself, when he had cooled, think of it with- 
out vexation and shame. The government, however, with its usual 
folly, treated him so severely that in a short time the public sympa- 
thy was all on his side. A criminal information was filed in the 
King’s Bench, The defendant took his stand on the privileges of the 


a 
q 


598 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


peerage; nor is it possible to deny that the decision, whether it were 
or were not according to the technical rules of English law, was in 
strict conformity with the great principles on which all laws ought to 
-be framed. Nothing was then left to him but to plead guilty. The 


tribunal had, by successive dismissions, been reduced to such com- — 


plete subjection, that the government which had instituted the prose- 
cution was allowed to prescribe the punishment. The Judges waited 
in a body on Jeffreys, who insisted that they should impose a fine of 
not less than thirty thousand pounds. Thirty thousand pounds, when 
compared with the revenues of the English grandees of that age, may 
be considered as equivalent to a hundred and fifty thousand pounds in 
the nineteenth century. In the presence of the Chancellor not a word 
of disapprobation was uttered: but, when the Judges had retired, Sir 
John Powell, in whom all the little honesty of the bench was concen- 
trated, muttered that the proposed penalty was enormous, and that 
one tenth part would be amply sufficient. His brethren did not 
agree with him; nor did he, on this occasion, show the courage by 
which, on a memorable day some months later, he signally retrieved 
hisfame. The Earl was accordingly condemned to a fine of thirty 
thousand pounds, and to imprisonment till payment should be made. 
Such a sum could not then be raised at a day’s notice even by 
the greatest of the nobility. The sentence of imprisonment, how- 
ever, was more easily pronounced than executed. Devonshire had 


retired to Chatsworth, where he was employed in turning the old ~ 


Gothic mansion of his family into an edifice worthy of Palladio. 
The Peak was in those days almost as rude a district as Conne- 
mara now is, and the Sheriff found, or pretended, that it was 
difficult to arrest the lord of so wild a region in the midst of a de- 
voted household and tenantry. Some days were thus gained: but 
at last both the Earl and the Sheriff were lodged in prison. Mean- 
while a crowd of intercessors exerted their influence. The story ran 
that the Countess Dowager of Devonshire had obtained admittance 
to the royal closet, that she had reminded James how her brother in 
law, the gallant Charles Cavendish, had fallen at Gainsborough fight- 
ing for the crown, and that she had produced notes, written by 
Charles the First and Charles the Second, in acknowledgment of 
great sums lent by her Lord during the civil troubles. Those loans 
had never been repaid, and, with the interest,.amounted, it was said, 
to more even than the immense fine which the Court of King’s Bench 
had imposed. There was another consideration which seems to 
have had more weight with the King than the memory of former 
services, It might be necessary to call a Parliament. Whenever 
that event took place it was believed that Devonshire would bring a 
writ of error. The point on which he meant to appeal from the 
judgment of the King’s Bench related to the privileges of peerage. 

he tribunal before which the appeal must come was the House of 
Peers. On such an occasion the Court could not be certain of the 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 599 


support even of the most courtly nobles. There was little doubt that 
the sentence would be annulled, and that, by grasping at too much, 
the government would lose all. James was therefore disposed to a 
compromise. Devonshire was informed that, if he would give 
a bond for the whole fine, and thus preclude himself from the advan- 
tage which he might derive from a writ of error, he should be set at 
liberty. Whether the bond should be enforced or not would depend 
on his subsequent conduct. If he would support the dispensing power 
nothing would be exacted from him. If he was bent on popularity 
he must pay thirty thousand pounds for it. He refused, during 
some time, to consent to these terms; but confinement was insup- 
portable to him. He signed the bond, aud was let out of prison: 
but, though he consented to lay his heavy burden on his estate, 
nothing could induce him to promise that he would abandon his 
principles and his party. He was still entrusted with all the secrets 
of the opposition: but during some months his political friends 
thought it best for himself and for the good cause that he should re- 
main in the background.* 

The Earl of Bedford had never recovered from the effects of the 
great calamity which, four years before, had almost broken his 
heart. From private as well as from public feelings he was adverse 
to the court: but he was not active in concerting measures against it. 
His place in the meetings of the malecontents was supplied by his 
nephew. This was the celebrated Edward Russell, a man of un- 
doubted courage and capacity, but of loose principles and turbulent 
temper. He was a sailor, had distinguished himself in his profes- 
sion, and had in the late reign held an office in the palace. But all 
the ties which bound him to the royal family had been sundered by 
the death of his cousin William. The daring, unquiet, and vindictive 
seaman now sate in the councils called by the Dutch Envoy as the 
representative of the boldest and most eager section of the opposi- 
tion, of those men who, under the names of Roundheads, Exclusion- 
ists, and Whigs, had maintained with various fortune a contest of 
five and forty years against three successive Kings. This party, 
lately prostrate and almost extinct, but now again full of life and 
rapidly rising to ascendency, was troubled by none of the scruples 
which still impeded the movements of Tories and Trimmers, and 
was prepared to draw the sword against the tyrant on the first day 
on which the sword could be drawn with reasonable hope of suc- 
cess. 


* Kennet’s funeral sermon on the Duke of Devonshire, and Memoirs of the 
family of Cavendish; State Trials; Privy Council Book, March 5, 1685-6; Barillon 
June 30, 
epeiny 01687 ; Johnstone, Dec. 8-18, 1687; Lords’ Journals, May 6, 1689. ‘‘Ses 
amis et ses proches,’’ says Barillon, ‘‘lui conseillent de prendre le bon parti, 
mais il persiste jusqu’a present 4 ne se point soumettre. Sil vouloit se bien 
eonduire et renoncer a étre populaire, il ne payeroit pas l’amende, mais s’il 
opiniatre, il lui en cofitera trente mille piéces, et il demeurera prisonnier 
jusqu’a l’actuel payement.”’ 


600 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


Three men are yet to be mentioned with whom Dykvelt was in 
- confidential communication, and by whose help he hoped to secure 
the good will of three great professions. ‘Bishop Compton was the 
agent employed to manage the clergy: Admiral Herbert undertook 
to exert all his influence over the navy; and an interest was estab- 
lished in the army by the instrumentality of Churchill. 

The conduct of Compton and Herbert requires no explanation. 
Having, in all things secular, served the crown with zeal and fidel- 
ity, they had incurred the royal displeasure by refusing to be em- 
ployed as tools for the destruction of their own religion. Both 
of them had learned by experience how soon James forgot obli- 
gations, and how bitterly he remembered what it pleased him to 
consider as wrongs. ‘The Bishop had by an illegal sentence been 
suspended from his episcopal functions. The Admiral had in one 
hour been reduced from opulence to penury. The situation of 
Churchill was widely different. He had been raised by the royal 
bounty from obscurity to eminence, and from poverty to wealth. 
Having started in life a needy ensign, he was now, in his thirty- 
seventh year, a Major General, a peer of Scotland, a peer of England: 
he commanded a troop of Life Guards: he had been appointed to 
several honourable and lucrative offices; and as yet there was no 
sign that he had lost any part of the favour to which he owed so 
much. He was bound to James, not only by the common obliga- 
tions of allegiance, but by military honour, by. personal gratitude, 
and, as appeared to superficial observers, by the strongest ties of 
interest. But Churchill himself was no superficial observer. He 
knew exactly what his interest really was. If his master were once 
at full liberty to employ Papists, not a single Protestant would be 
employed. Fora time a few highly favoured servants of the crown 
might possibly be exempted from the general proscription in the 
hope that they would be induced to change their religion. But 
even these would, after a short respite, fall one by one, as Rochester 
had already fallen. Churchill might indeed secure himself from 
this danger, aad might raise himself still higher in the royal favour, 
by conforming to the Church of Rome; and it might seem that one 
who was not less distinguished by avarice and baseness than by 
capacity and valour was not likely to be shocked at the thought of 
hearing amass. But so inconsistent is human nature that there are 
tender spots even in seared consciences. And thus this man, who 
had owed his rise to his sister's dishonour, who had been kept by 
the most profuse, imperious, and shameless of harlots, and whose 


_ public life, to those who can look steadily through the dazzling blaze — 


of genius and glory, will appear a prodigy of turpitude, believed 
implicitly in the religion which he had learned as a boy, and shud- 
dered at the thought of formally abjuring it. A terrible alternative 
was before him. ‘The earthly evil which he most dreaded was poy- 
erty. The one crime from which his heart recoiled was apostasy, 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 601 


And, if the designs of the court succeeded, he could not doubt that 
between poverty and apostasy he must soon make his choice. He 
therefore determined to cross those designs; and it soon appeared 
that there was no guilt and no disgrace which he was not ready to 
incur, in order to escape from the necessity of parting either with 
his places or with his religion.* 

It was not only as a military commander, high in rank, and distin- 
guished by skill and courage, that:Churchill was able to render ser- 
vices to the opposition. It was, if not absolutely essential, yet most 
important, to the success of William’s plans that his sister in law, 
who, in the order of succession to the English throne, stood between 
his wife and himself, should act in cordial union with him. All his 
difficulties would have been greatly augmented if Anne had declared 
herself favourable to the Indulgence. Which side she might take 
depended on the will of others. For her understanding was slug- 
gish; and, though there was latent in her character a hereditary wil- 
fulness and stubbornness which, many years later, great power and 
great provocations developed, she was as yet a willing slave to a 
nature far more vivacious and imperious than her own. The person 
‘by whom she was absolutely governed was the wife of Churchill, a 
woman who afterwards exercised a great influence on the fate of 
England and of Europe. i 

The name of this celebrated favourite was Sarah Jennings. Her 
elder sister, Frances, had been distinguished by beauty and levity 
even among the crowd of beautiful faces and light characters which 
adorned and disgraced Whitehall during the wild carnival of the Res- 
toration. On one occasion France dressed herself like an orange girl 
and cried fruit about the streets.| Sober people predicted that a 
girl of so little discretion and delicacy would not easily find a hus- 
band. She was, however, twice married, and was now the wife of 
Tyrconnel. Sarah, less regulary beautiful, was perhaps more attrac- 
tive. Her face was expressive: her form wanted no feminine charm; 
and the profusion of her fine hair, not yet disguised by powder 
according to that barbarous fashion which she lived to see intro- 
duced, was the delight of numerous admirers. Among the gallants who 
sued for her favour, Colonel Churchill, young, handsome, graceful, 
insinuating, eloquent, and brave, obtained the preference. He must 
have been enamoured indeed. For he had little property except the 
annuity which he had bought with the infamous wages bestowed on 
him by the Duchess of Cleveland: he was insatiable of riches: Sarah 


* The motive which determined the conduct of the Churchills is shortly and 
plainly set forth in the Duchess of Marlborough’s Vindication. ‘‘It was,” she 
says, ‘‘ evident to all the world that, as things were carried on by King James, 
everybody sooner or later must be ruined, who would not become a Roman 
Catholic. This consideration made me very well pleased at the Prince of 
Orange’s undertaking to rescue us from such slavery.’ 

+ Grammont’s Memoirs ; Pepys’s Diary, Feb. 21, 1684-5. 


602 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


was poor; and a plain girl of large fortune was proposed to him. 
His love, after a struggle, prevailed over his avarice: marriage only 
strengthened his passion; and to the last hour of his life, Sarah 
enjoyed the pleasure and distinction of being the one human being 
who was able to mislead that farsighted and surefooted judgment, 
who was fervently loved by that cold heart, and who was servilely 
feared by that intrepid spirit. 

In a worldly sense the fidelity of Churchill’s love was amply re- 
warded. His bride, though slenderly portioned, brought with her a 
dowry which, judiciously employed, made him at length a Duke of 
England, a Prince of the Empire, the captain general of a great co- 
alition, the arbiter between mighty princes, and, what he valued more, 
the wealthiest subject in Europe. She had been brought up from 
childhood with the Princess Anne; and a close friendship had arisen 
between the girls. In character they resembled each other very 
little. Anne was slow and taciturn. ‘To those whom she loved she 
was meek. The form which her anger assumed was sullenness. 
She had a strong sense of religion, and was attached even with big- 
otry to the rites and government of the Church of England. Sarah 
was lively and voluble, domineered over those whom she regarded 
with most kindness, and, when she was offended, vented her rage in 
tears and tempestuous reproaches. To sanctity she made no pre- 
tence, and, indeed, narrowly escaped the imputation of irreligion. 
She was not yet what she became when one class of vices had been 
fully developed in her by prosperity, and another by adversity, when 
her brain had been turned by success and flattery, when her heart 
had been ulcerated by disasters and mortifications. She lived to be 
that most odious and miserable of human beings, an ancient crone at 


war with her whole kind, at war with her own children and grand- ~ 


children, great indeed and rich, but valuing greatness and riches 
chiefly because they enabled her to brave public opinion, and to in- 


dulge without restraint her hatred to the living and the dead. In the 


reign of James she was regarded as nothing worse than a fine high- 
spirited young woman, who could now and then be cross and arbi- 
trary, but whose flaws of temper might well be pardoned in consid- 
eration of her charms. 

It is acommon observation that differences of taste, understand- 
ing, and disposition, are no impediments to friendship, and that the 
closest intimacies often exist between minds each of which supplies 
what is wanting to the other. Lady Churchill was loved and even 
worshipped by Anne. The Princess could not live apart from the 
object of her romantic fondness. She married, and was a faithful 
and even an affectionate wife. But Prince George, a dull man whose 
chief pleasures were derived from his dinner and his bottle, acquired 
over her no influence comparable to that exercised by her female 
friend, and soon gave himself up with stupid patience to the domin- 
ion of the vehement and commanding spirit by which his wife was 


~~ 


* 


\ 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 608 


governed. Children were born to the royal pair; and Anne was by 
no means without the feelings of a mother. But the tenderness 
which she felt for her offspring was languid when compared with 
her devotion to the companion of her early years. At length the 
Princess became impatient of the restraint which etiquette imposed 
on her. She could not bear to hear the words Madam and Royal 
Highness from the lips of one who was more to. her than a sister. 
Such words were indeed necessary in the gallery or the drawing- 
room: but they were disused in the closet. Anne was Mrs. Morley : 
Lady Churchill was Mrs. Freeman; and under these childish names 
was carried on during twenty years a correspondence on which at 
last the fate of administrations and dynasties depended. But as yet 
Anne had no political power and little patronage. Her friend at- 
tended her as first Lady of the Bedchamber, with a salary of only 
four hundred pounds a year. There is reason, however, to believe 
that, even at this time, Churchill was able to gratify his ruling pas- 
sion by means of his wife’s influence. The Princess, though her in- 
come was large and her tastes simple, contracted debts, which her 
father, not without some murmurs, discharged; and it was rumoured 
that her embarrassments had been caused by her prodigal bounty to 
her favourite. * 

At length the time had arrived when this singular friendship was 
to exercise a great influence on public affairs. What part Anne 
would take in the contest which distracted England was a matter of 
deep anxiety. Filial duty was on one side; and the interests of the 
religion to which she was attached, were on the other. A less inert 
nature might well have remained long in suspense when drawn in 
opposite directions by motives so strong and so respectable. But the 
influence of the Churchills decided the question; and their patroness 
became an important member of that extensive league of which the 
Prince of Orange was the head. 

In June 1687 Dykvelt returned to the Hague. He presented to 
the States General a royal epistle filled with eulogies of his conduct 
during his residence in London... These eulogies however were merely 
formal. James, in private communications written with his own 
hand, bitterly complained that the Envoy had lived in close intimacy 
with the most factious men in the realm, and had encouraged them 
in all their evil purposes. Dykvelt carried with him also a packet 
of letters from the most eminent of those with whom he had con- 
ferred during his stay in England. The writers generally expressed 
unbounded reverence and affection for William, and referred him to 
the bearer for fuller information as to their views. Halifax discussed 
the state and prospects of the country with his usual subtlety and 


* It would be endless to recount all the books from which I have formed my 
estimate of the duchess’s character. Her own letters, her own vindication, and 
the replies which it called forth, have been my chief materials. 


604 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


vivacity, but took care not to pledge himself to any perilous line of 
conduct. Danby wrote in a bolder and more determined tone, and 
could not refrain from slily sneering at the fears and scruples of his 
accomplished rival. But the most remarkable letter was from 
Churchill. It was written with that natural eloquence which, illit- 
erate as he was, he never wanted on great occasions, and with that 
air of magnanimity which, perfidious as he was, he could with sin- 
gular dexterity assume. The Princess Anne, he said, had com- 
manded him to assure her illustrious relatives at the Hague that she 
was fully resolved by God’s help rather to lose her life than to be 
guilty of apostasy. As for himself, his places and the royal favour 
were as nothing to him in comparison with his religion. He con- 
cluded by declaring in lofty language that, though he could not pre- 
tend to have lived the life of a saint, he should be found reaay, on 
occasion, to die the death of a martyr.* 

Dykvelt’s mission had succeeded so well that a pretence was soon 
found for sending another agent to continue the work which had 
been so auspiciously commenced. The new Envoy, afterwards the 
founder of a noble English house which became extinct in our own 
time, was an illegitimate cousin german of William; and bore a title 
taken from the lordship of Zulestein. Zulestein’s relationship to the 
House of Orange gave him importance in the public eye. His bear- 
ing was that of a gallant soldier. He was indeed in diplomatic talents 
and knowledge far inferior to Dykvelt: but even this inferiority had 
its advantages. A military man, who had never appeared to trouble 
himself about political affairs, could, without exciting any suspicion, 
hold with the English aristocracy an intercourse which, if he had 
been a noted master of statecraft, would have been jealously watched. 
Zulestein, after a short absence, returned to his country charged with 
letters and verbal messages not less important than those which had 
been entrusted to his predecessor. A regular correspondence was 
from this time established between the Prince and the opposition. 
Agents of various ranks passed and repassed between the Thames and 
the Hague. Among these a Scotchman, of some parts and great ac- 
tivity, named Johnstone, was the most useful. He was cousin to 
Burnet, and son of an eminent covenanter who had, soon after the 
Restoration, been put to death for treason, and who was honoured 
by his party as a martyr. 

The estrangement between the King of England and the Prince of 
Orange became daily more complete. <A serious dispute had arisen 
concerning the six British regiments which were in the pay of the 
United Provinces. The King wished to put these regiments under the 
command of Roman Catholic officers. The Prince resolutely opposed 


* The formal epistle which Dykvelt carried back to the States is in the Ar- 
chives at the Hague. The other letters mentioned in this paragraph are given 
by Dalrymple; Appendix to Book V. 


at 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 605 


this design. The King had recourse to his favourite commonplaces 


about toleration, The Prince replied that he only followed His 


Majesty’s example. It was notorious that loyal and able men had 
been turned out of office in England merely for being Protestants. 
It was then surely competent to the Stadtholder and the States 
General to withhold high public trusts from Papists. This answer 
provoked James to such a degree that, in his rage, he lost sight of 
veracity and common sense. It was false, he vehemently said, that 
he had ever turned out any body on religious grounds. And if he 
had, what was that to the Prince orto the States? Were they his 
masters? Were they to sit in judgment on the conduct of foreign 
sovereigns? From that time he became desirous to recall his sub- 
jects who were in the Dutch service. By bringing them over to 
England he should, he conceived, at once strengthen himself, and 
weaken his worst enemies. But there were financial difficulties 
which it was impossible for him to overlook. The number of troops 
already in his pay was as great as his revenue, though large beyond 
all precedent, and though parsimoniously administered, would sup- 
port. If the battalions now in Holland were added to the existing 
establishment, the Treasury would be bankrupt. Perhaps Lewis 
might be induced to take them into his service. They would in that 
case be removed from a country where they were exposed to the 
corrupting influence of a republican government and a Calvinistic 
worship, and would be placed in a country where none ventured to 
dispute the mandates of the sovereign or the doctrines of the true 
Church. The soldiers would soon unlearn every political and relig- 
ious heresy. Their native prince might always, at short notice, 
command their help, and would, on any emergency, be able to rely 
on their fidelity. 

A negotiation on this subject was opened between Whitehall and . 
Versailles. Lewis had-as many soldiers as he wanted; and, had it 
been otherwise, he would not have been disposed to take English- 
men into his service; for the pay of England, low as it must seem to 
our generation, was much higher than the pay of France. At the 
same time, it was a great object to deprive William of so fine a 
brigade. After some weeks of correspondence, Barillon was au- 
thorised to promise that, if James would recall the British troops 
from Holland, Lewis would bear the charge of supporting two thou- 
sand of them in England. This offer was accepted by James with 
warm expressions of gratitude. Having made these arrangements, 
he requested the States General to send back the six regiments. The 
States General, completely governed by William, answered that such 
a demand, in such circumstances, was not authorised by the existing 
treaties, and positively refused to comply. It is remarkable that 
Amsterdam, which had voted for keeping these troops in Holland 
when James needed their help against the Western insurgents, now 
contended vehemently that his request ought to be granted. On 


M. E. i.—20 


606 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


both occasions, the sole object of those who ruled that great city was 
to cross the Prince of Orange.* 

The Dutch arms, however, were scarcely so formidable to James 
as the Dutch presses. English books and pamphlets against his 
government were daily printed at the Hague; nor could any vigilance 
prevent copies from being smuggled, by tens of thousands, into the 
counties bordering on the German Ocean. Among these publications, 
one was distinguished by its importance, and by the immense effect 
which it produced. The opinion which the Prince and Princess of 
Orange held respecting the Indulgence was well known to all who 
were conversant with public affairs. But, as no official announce- 
ment of that opinion had appeared, many persons who had not 
access to good private sources of information were deceived or per- 
plexed by the confidence with which the partisans of the Court as- 
serted that their Highnesses approved of the King’s late acts. To 
contradict these assertions publicly would have been a simple and 
obvious course, if the sole object of William had been to strengthen 
his interest in England. But he considered England chiefly as an 
instrument necessary to the execution of his great European design. 
Towards this design he hoped to obtain the codperation of both 
branches of the House of Austria, of the Italian princes, and even 
of the Sovereign Pontiff. There was reason to fear that any decla- 
ration which was satisfactory to British Protestants would excite 
alarm and disgust at Madrid, Vienna, Turin, and Rome. [For this 
reason the Prince long abstained from formally expressing his senti- 
ments. Atlengthit was represented to him thathis continued silence 
had excited much uneasiness and distrust.among his wellwishers, 
and that it was time to speak out. He therefore determined to ex- 
plain himself. 

A Scotch Whig, named James Stewart, had fled some years before 
to Holland, in order to avoid the boot and the gallows, and had be- 
come intimate with the Grand Pensionary Fagel, who enjoyed a 
large share of the Stadtholder’s confidence and favour. By Stewart 
had been drawn up the violent and acrimonious manifesto of Argyle. 
When the Indulgence appeared, Stewart conceived that he had an 
opportunity of obtaining, not only pardon, but reward. He offered 
his services to the government of which he had been the enemy: 
they were accepted; and he addressed to Fagel a letter, purporting 
to have been written by the direction of James. In that letter the 
Pensionary was exhorted to use all his influence with the Prince and 


* Sunderland to William, Aug, 24, 1686; William to Sunderland, Sept. 2-12, 


May 26, Nov, 28, , 
1686; Barillon, May 6-16, ——-— Oct. 3-13, 1687; Lewis to Barillon, Oct. 


June 5, ec, 8, 
14-24, 1687; Memorial of Albeville, Dec. 15-25, 1687; James to William, Jan. 17, 
arc. ‘ 


Feb. 16, March 2, 18, 1688; Avaux Neg., March1-11, 6-16, 8-18, au 1688, 


pril 1, 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 607 


Princess, for the purpose of inducing them to support their father’s 
policy. After some delay Fagel transmitted a reply, deeply medi- 
tated, and drawn up with exquisite art. No person who studies that 
remarkable document can fail to perceive that, though it is framed 
in a manner well calculated to reassure and delight English Protes- 
tants, it contains not a word which could give offence, even at the 
Vatican. It was announced that William and Mary would, with 
pleasure, assist in abolishing every law which made any Englishman 
liable to punishment for his religious opinions. But between punish- 
ments and disabilities a distinction was taken. Te admit Roman 
Catholics to office would, in the judgment of their Highnesses, be 
. neither for the general interest of England nor even for the in- 
terest of the Roman Catholics themselves. This manifesto was 
translated into several languages, and circulated widely on the Con- 
tinent. Of the English version, carefully prepared by Burnet, near 
fifty thousand copies were introduced into the eastern shires, and 
rapidly distributed over the whole kingdom. No state paper was 
ever more completely successful. The Protestants of our island ap- 
plauded the manly firmness with which William declared that he 
eould not consent to entrust Papists with any share in the govern- 
ment. The Roman Caiholic princes, on the other hand, were pleased 
by the mild and temperate style in which his resolution was ex- 
pressed, and by the hope which he held out that, under his adminis- 
tration, no member of their Church would be molested on account 
of religion. 

It is probable that the Pope himself was among those who read this 
celebrated letter with pleasure. He had some months before dismissed 
Castelmaine in a manner which showed little regard for the feelings 
of Castelmaine’s master. Innocent thoroughly disliked the whole 
domestic and foreign policy of the English government. He saw that 
the unjust and impolitic measures of the Jesuitical cabal were far more 
likely to make the penal laws perpetual than to bring about an aboli- 
tion of the test. His quarrel with the court of Versailles was every 
day becoming more and more serious; nor could he, either in his 
character of temporal prince or in his character of Sovereign Pontiff, 
feel cordial friendship for a vassal of that court. Castelmaine was 
ill qualified to remove these disgusts. He was indeed well acquaint- 
ed with Rome, and was, for a layman, deeply read in theological 
controversy.* But he had none of the address which his post re- 
quired; and, even had he been a diplomatist of the greatest ability, 
there was a circumstance which would have disqualified him for the 
particular mission on which he had been sent. He was known all 
over Europe as the husband of the most shameless of women; and 
he was known in no other way. It was impossible to speak to him 
or of him without remembering in what manner the very title by 


* Adda, Nov. 9-19, 1685. 


608 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


which he was called had been acquired. This circumstance would 
have mattered little if he had been accredited to some dissolute court, 
such as that in which the Marchioness of Montespan had lately been 
dominant. But there was an obvious impropriety in sending him on 
. an embassy rather of a spiritual than of a secular pature to a pontiff 
of primitive austerity. The Protestants all over Europe sneered; 
and Innocent, already unfavourably disposed to the English govern- 
ment, considered the compliment which had been paid him, at so 
much risk and at so heavy a cost, as little better than an affront. 
The salary of the Ambassador was fixed at a hundred pounds a week. 
Castelmaine complained that this was too little. Thrice the sum, he 
said, would hardly suffice. For at Rome the ministers of the great - 
Continental powers exerted themselves to surpass one another. in 
splendour, under the eyes of a people whom the habit of seeing 
magnificent buildings, decorations, and ceremonies had made fas- 
tidious, He always declared that he had been a loser by his mission. 
He was accompanied by several young gentlemen of the best Roman ° 
Catholic families in England, Ratcliffes, Arundellsand Tichbornes. At 
Rome he was lodged in the palace of the house of Pamfili on the south 
of the stately Place of Navona. He was carly admitted to a private 
interview with Innocent: but the public audience was long delayed. 
Indeed Castelmaine’s preparations for the great occasion were so 
sumptuous that though commenced at Easter 1686, they were not 
complete till the following November; and in November the Pope 
had, or pretended to have, an attack of gout which caused another 
postponement. In January 1687, at length the solemn introduction 
and homage were performed with unusual pomp. The state coaches, 
which had been built at Rome for the pageant, were so superb that 
they were thought worthy to be transmitted to posterity in fine en- 
gravings and to be celebrated by poets in several languages.* The 
front of the Ambassador’s palace was decorated on this great day 
_ with absurd allegorical paintings of gigantic size. There was Saint 
George with his foot on the neck of Titus Oates, and Hercules with 
his club crushing College, the Protestant joiner, who in vain at- 


ae 


* The Professor of Greek in the College De Propaganda Fide expressed his 
admiration in some detestable hexameters and pentameters, of which the fo!- 
lowing specimen may suffice : 


Payepiov 6 6xebomevos Aaumpoto Optaufor, 
wua man HiG6ev nar Oger Gydos anas: 
bavuatovon dé THY MounnY, TAYAPVOER TY avTOD 
apwata, rovs & inxnovs, rotade Paun Eqn. 
The Latin verses are a little better. Nahum Tate responded in English : 


‘* His glorious train and passing pomp to view, 
A pomp that even to Rome itself was new, 
Fach age, each sex, the Latian turrets filled, 
Each age and sex in tears of joy distilled.” 


f ue 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 608 


tempted to defend himself with his flail. After this public appear- 


ance Castelmaine invited all persons of note then assembled at Rome 
to banquet in that gay and splendid gallery which is adorned with 
paintings of subjects from the Aineid by Peter of Cortona. The 
whole city crowded to the show; and it was with difficulty that a 
company of Swiss guards could keep order among the spectators. 
The nobles of the Pontifical state in return gave costly entertain- 
ments to the Ambassador; and poets and wits were employed to 
lavish on him and on his master insipid and hyperbolical adulation 
such as flourishes most when genius and taste are in the deepest de- 
cay. Foremost among the flatterers was a crowned head. More 
than thirty years had elapsed since Christina, the daughter of the 
great Gustavus, had voluntarily descended from the Swedish throne. 
After long wanderings, in the course of which she had committed 
many follies and crimes, she had finally taken up her abode at Rome, 
where she busied herself with astrological calculations and with the 
intrigues of the conclave, and amused herself with pictures, gems, 
manuscripts, and medals. She now composed some Italian stanzas 
in honour of the English prince, who, sprung, like herself, from a 
race of Kings heretofore regarded as the champions of the Reforma- 
tion, had, like herself, been reconciled to the ancient Church. A 
splendid assembly met in her palace. Her verses, set to music, were 
sung with universal applause: and one of her literary dependents 
pronounced an oration on the same subject in a style so florid that it 


~ seems to have offended the taste of the English hearers. The Jes- 


uits, hostile to the Pope, devoted to the interests of France, and 
disposed to pay every honour to James, received the English embassy 
with the utmost pomp in that princely house where the remains of 
Ignatius Loyola lie enshrined in lazulite and goid. Sculpture, 


‘painting, poetry, and eloquence were employed to compliment the 


strangers: but all these arts had sunk into deep degeneracy. There 
was a great display of turgid and impure Latinity unworthy of so 
erudite an order; and some of the inscriptions which adorned the 
walls had a fault more serious than even a bad style. It was said in 
one place that James had sent his brother as his messenger to 
heaven, and in another that James had furnished the wings with 
which his brother had soared to a higher region. There was a stil] 
more unfortunate distich, which at the time attracted little notice, 
but which, a few months later, was remembered and malignantly 


interpreted. ‘‘O King,” said the poet, ‘‘cease to sigh for a son, 
Though nature may refuse your wish, the stars will tind a way to 
grant it.” 


In the midst of these festivities Castelmaine had to suffer cruel 
mortifications and humiliations. The Pope treated him with ex- 
treme coldness and reserve. As often as the Ambassador pressed for 
an answer to the request which he had been instructed to make in 
favour of Petre, Innocent was taken with a violent fit of coughing, 


610 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


which put an end to the conversation. The fame of these singular 
audiences spread over Rome. Pasquin was not silent. All the curi- 
ous and tattling population of the idlest of cities, the Jesuits and the 
prelates of the French faction only excepted, laughed at Castel- 
maine’s discomfiture. His temper, naturally unamiable, was soon 
exasperated to violence; and he circulated a memorial reflecting on 
the Pope. He had now put himself in the wrong. The sagacious 
Italian had got the advantage, and took care to keep it. He posi- 
tively declared that the rule which excluded Jesuits from ecclesiastical 
preferment should not be relaxed in favour of Father Petre. Castel- 
maine, much provoked, threatened to leave Rome. Innocent replicd, 
with a meek impertinence which was the more provoking because it 
could scarcely be distinguished from simplicity, that His Excellency 
might go if he liked. ‘‘ But if we must lose him,” added the vener- 
able Pontiff, ‘‘ I hope that he will take care of his health on the road. 
English people do not know how dangerous it is in this country to 
travel in the heat of the day. The best way is to start before dawn, 
and to take some rest at noon.” With this salutary advice, and with 
a string of beads, the unfortunate Ambassador was dismissed. In a 
few months appeared, both in the Italian and in the English tongue, 
a pompous history of the mission, magnificently printed in folio, 
and illustrated with plates. The frontispiece, to the great scandal 
of all Protestants, represented Castelmaine, in the robes of a Peer, 
with his coronet in his hand, kissing the toe of Innocent.* 


CHAPTER VIII. 


THE marked discourtesy of the Pope might well have irritated the 
meekest of princes. But the only effect which it produced on James 
was to make him more lavish of caresses and compliments. While 
Castelmaine, his whole soul festering with angry passions, was on the 
road back to England, the Nuncio was loaded with honours which 
his own judgment would have led him to reject. He had, by a fic- 
tion often used in the Church of Rome, been lately raised to the 
episcopal dignity without having the charge of any see. He was 
called Archbishop of Amasia, a city of Pontus, the birthplace of 
Strabo and Mithridates. James insisted that the ceremony of con- 
secration should be performed in the chapel of Saint James’s Palace. 
The Vicar Apostolic Leyburn and two Irish prelates officiated. The 
doors were thrown open to the public; and it was remarked that 
some of those Puritans who had recently turned courtiers were 


Correspondence of James and Innocent, in the British Museum; Burnet i. 
703-705, Welwood’s Memoirs Commons’ Journals, Oct. 28, 1689; An Account of 
his Excellency Roger Earl of Castelmaine’s Embassy, by Michael Wright, chief 
steward of His Excellency’s house at Rome, 1688, 


~ 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 611 


among the spectators. In the evening Adda, wearing the robes of 
his new office, joined the circle in the Queen’s apartments. James 
fell on his knees in the presence of the whole court and implored a 
blessing. In spite of the restraint imposed by etiquette, the astonish- 
ment and disgust of the bystanders could not be concealed.* It 
was long indeed since an English sovereign had knelt to mortal 
man; and those who saw the strange sight could not but think of 
that day of shame when John did homage for his crown between the 
hands of Pandolph. 

In a short time a still more ostentatious pageant was performed in 
honour of the Holy See. It was determined that the Nuncio should 
go to court in solemn procession. Some persons on whose obedi- 
ence the King had counted showed, on this occasion, for the first 
time, signs of a mutinous spirit. Among these the most conspicuous 
was the second temporal peer of the realm, Charles Seymour, 
commonly called the proud Duke of Somerset. He was in truth a 
man in whom the pride of birth and rank amounted almost to a dis- 
ease. The fortune which he had inherited was not adequate to the 
high place which he held among the English aristocracy: but he had 
become possessed of the greatest estate in England by his marriage 
with the daughter and heiress of the last Percy who wore the 
ancient coronet of Northumberland. Somerset was only in his 
twenty-fifth year, and was very little known to the public. He was 
a Lord of the King’s Bedchamber, and colonel of one of the regi- 
ments which had been raised at the time of the Western insurrec- 
tion. He had not scrupled to carry the sword of state into the royal 
chapel on days of festival: but he now resolutely refused to swell 
the pomp of the Nuncio. Some members of his family implored 
him not to draw on himself the royal displeasure: but their entreaties 
produced no effect. The King himself expostulated. ‘‘I thought, 
my Lord,” said he, ‘‘that I was doing you a great honour in ap- 
_ pointing you to escort the minister of the first of all crowned heads.” 
“Sir,” said the Duke, ‘‘I am advised that I cannot obey Your 


_ Majesty without breaking the law.” ‘‘I will make you fear me as 
well as the law,” answered the King, insolently. ‘‘Do you not 
know that [am above the law?” ‘‘ Your Majesty may be above 


the law,” replied Somerset,” ‘‘ but Iam not; and, while I obey the 
law, I fear nothing.” The King turned away in high displeasure; 
and Somerset was instantly dismissed from his posts in the household 
and in the army.t+ 

On one point, however, James showed some prudence. He did 
not venture to parade the Papal Envoy in state before the vast popu- 
lation of the capital. ‘The ceremony was performed, on the third of 


* Barillon, May 2-12, 1687. 

+ Memoirs of the Duke of Somerset; Van Citters, July 5-15, 1687; Eachard’s 
History of the Revolution; Life of James the Second, ii. 116, 117, 118; Lord 
Lonsdale’s Memoirs. 


612 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


July 1687, at Windsor. Great multitudes flocked to the little town. 
The visitors were so numerous that there was neither food nor lodg- 
ing for them; and many persons of quality sate the whole day in 
their carriages waiting for the exhibition. At length, late in the 
afternoon, the Knight Marshal’s men appeared on horseback. Then 
came a long train of running footmen; and then, in a royal coach, 
was seen Adda, robedin purple, with a brilliant cross on his breast. 
He was followed by the equipages of the principal courtiers and 
ministers of state. In his train the crowd recognised with disgust the 
arms and liveries of Crewe, Bishop of Durham, and of Cartwright, 
Bishop of Chester.* 

On the following day appeared in the Gazette a proclamation dis- 
solving that Parliament which of all the fifteen Parliaments held by 
the Stuarts had been the most obsequious.+ 

Meanwhile new difficulties had arisen in Westminster Hall. Only 
a few months had elapsed since some Judges had been turned out 
and others put in for the purpose of obtaining a decision favourable 
to the crown in the case of Sir Edward Hales; and already fresh 
changes were necessary. 

The King had scarcely formed that army on which he chiefly de- 
pended for the accomplishing of his designs when he found that 
he could not himself control it. When war was actually raging in the 
kingdom, a mutinecr or a deserter might be tried by a military tri- 
bunal, and executed by the Provost Marshal. But there was now 
profound peace. The common law of England, having sprung up 
In an age when all men bore arms occasionally and none constantly, 
recognised no distinction, in time of peace, between a soldier and 
any other subject; nor was there any Act resembling that by which 
the authority necessary for the government of regular troops is now 
annually confided to the Sovereign. Some old statutes indeed made_ 
desertion felony in certain specified cases. But those statutes were 
applicable only to soldiers serving the King in actual war, and could 
not without the grossest disingenuousness be so strained as to in- 
clude the case of a man who, in a time of tranquillity, should become 
tired of the camp at Hounslow, and should go back to his native vil- 
lage. The government appears to have had no hold on such a man, 
except the hold which master bakers and master tailors have on their 
journeymen. He and his officers were, in the eye of the law, ona 
level. If he swore at them he might be fined for an oath. If he 
struck them he might be prosecuted for assault and battery. In 
truth the regular army was under less restraint than the militia. For 
the militia was a body established by an Act of Parliament; and it 
had been provided by that Act that slight punishments might be 
summarily inflicted for breaches of discipline. 


* London Gazette, July 7, 1687; Van Citters, July 7-17. Account of the cere- 
mony reprinted among the Somers Tracts. 
t London Gazette, July 4, 1687. 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 613 


It does not appear that, during the reign of Charles the Second, 
the practical inconvenience arising from this state of the law had 
been much felt. The explanation may perhaps be that, till the last 
year of his reign, the force which he maintained in England eon- 
sisted chiefly of household troops, whose pay was so high that dis- 
mission from the service would have been felt by most of them as a 
great calamity. Thestipend of a private in the Life Guards was a 
provision for the younger son of a gentleman. Even the Foot Guards 
were paid about as high as manufacturers in a prosperous season, 
and were therefore in a situation which the great body of the labour- 
ing population might regard with envy. The return of the garrison 
of Tangier and the raising of the new regiments had made a great 
change. ‘There were now in England many thousands of soldiers, 
each of whom received only eightpence a day. The dread of dismis- 
sion was not suflicient to keep them to their duty; and corporal 
punishment their officers could not legally inflict. James had there- 
fore one plain choice before him, to let his army dissolve itself, or to 
induce the Judges to pronounce that the law was what every barris- 
ter in the Temple knew tuat it was not. 

It was peculiarly important to secure the coéperation of two 
courts, the court of King’s Bench, which was the first criminal tri- 
bunal in the realm, and the court of gaol delivery which sate at the 
Old Bailey, and which had jurisdiction over offences committed in 
the capital. In both these courts there were great difficulties. Her- 
bert, Chief Justice of the King’s Bench, servile as he had hitherto 
been, would go no further. Resistance still more sturdy was to be 
expected from Sir John Holt, who, as Recorder of the City of Lon- 
don, occupied the bench at the Old Bailey. Holt was an eminently 
learned and clearheaded lawyer: he was an upright and courageous 
man; and, though he had never been factious, his political opinions 
had a tinge of Whiggism. All obstacles, however, disappeared be- 
fore the royal will. Holt was turned out of the recordership; 
Herbert and another Judge were removed from the King’s Bench; 
and the vacant places were filled by persons in whom the govern- 
ment could confide. It was indeed necessary to go very low down 
iu the legal profession before men could be found willing to render 
such services as were now required. The new Chief Justice, Sir 
Robert Wright, was ignorant to a proverb; yet ignorance was not 
his worst fault. His vices had ruined him. He had resorted to 
infamous ways of raising money, and had, on one occasion, made a 
false affidavit in order to obtain possession of five hundred pounds. 
Poor, dissolute, and shameless, he had become one of the parasites 
of Jeffreys, who promoted him and insulted him. Such was the 
man who was now selected by James to be Lord Chief Justice of 
England. One Richard Allibone, who was even more ignorant of 
the law than Wright, and who, as a Roman Catholic, was incapable 
of holding office, was appointed a puisne Judge of the King’s Bench. 


614 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


Sir Bartholomew Shower, equally notorious as a servile Tory and a 
tedious orator, became Recorder of London. When these changes 
had been made, several deserters were brought to trial. They were 
convicted in the face of the letter and of the spirit of the law, Some 
received sentence of death at the bar of the King’s Bench, and 
some at the Old Bailey. They were hanged in sight of the regiments 
to which they had belonged; and care was taken that the executions 
should be announced in the London Gazette, which very seldom 
noticed such events.* ‘ 

It may well be believed, that the law, so grossly insulted by courts 
which derived from it all their authority, and which were in the 
habit of looking to it as their guide, would be little respected by a 
tribunal which had originated in tyrannical caprice. The new High 
Commission had, during the first months of its existence, merely 
inhibited clergymen from exercising spiritual functions. The rights 
of property had remained untouched. But, early in the year 1687, it 
was determined to strike at freehold interests, and to impress on 
every Anglican priest and prelate the conviction that, if he refused 
to lend his aid for the purpose of destroying the Church of which he 
was a minister, he would in an hour be reduced to beggary. 

It would have been prudent to try the first experiment on some 
obscure individual. But the government was under an infatuation 
such as, in a@ more simple age, would have been called judicial. 
War was therefore at once declared against the two most venerable 
corporations of the realm, the Universities of Oxford and Cam- 
bridge. 

The power of those bodies has during many ages been great; but 
it was at the height during the latter part of the seventeenth century. 
None of the neighbouring countries could boast of such splendid 
and opulent seats of learning. The schools of Edinburgh and 
Glasgow, of Leyden and Utrecht, of Louvain and Leipsic, of Padua 
and Bologna, seemed mean to scholars who had been educated in the 
magnificent foundations of Wykeham and Wolsey, of Henry the 
Sixth and Henry the Eighth. Literature and science were, in the 
academical system of England, surrounded with pomp, armed with 
magistracy, and closely allied with all the most august institutions of 
the state. ‘To be the Chancellor of an University was a distinction 
eagerly sought by the magnat:s of the realm. ‘To represent an Uni- 
versity in Parliament was a favourite object of the ambition of 
statesmen. Nobles and even princes were proud to receive from an 
University the privilege of wearing the doctoral scarlet. The curious 
were attracted to the Universities by ancient buildings rich with 
the tracery of the middle ages, by modern buildings which exhibited 


* See the statutes 18 Henry 6, c. 19; 2 & 3 Ed. 6, c. 2; Eachard's History of the 
Revolution; Kennet iii. 468; North’s Life of Guildford, 247; London Gazette, 
April 18, May 23, 1687; Vindication of the E. of R. (Earl of Rochester). 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 615 


the highest skill of Jones and Wren, by noble halls and chapels, by 
museums, by botanical gardens, and by the only great public libraries 
which the kingdom then contained. The state which Oxford espe- 
cially displayed on solemn occasions rivalled that of sove- 
reign princes. When her Chancellor, the venerable Duke of 
Ormond, sate in his embroidered mantle on his throne under the 
painted ceiling of the Sheldonian theatre, surrounded by hundreds 
of graduates robed according to their rank, while the noblest youths of 
England were solemnly presented to him as candidates for academical 
honours, he made an appearance scarcely less regal than that which 
his master made in the Banqueting House of Whitehall. At the 
Universities had been formed the minds of almost all the eminent 
clergymen, lawyers, physicians, wits, poets, and orators of the land, 
and of a large proportion of the nobility and of the opulent gentry. 
It is also to be observed that the connection between the scholar and 
the school did not terminate with his residence. He often continued 
to be through life a member of the academical body, and to vote as 
such at all important elections. He therefore regarded his old haunts 
by the Cam and the Isis with even more than the affection which ed- 
ucated men ordinarily feel for the place of their education. There 
was no corner of England in which both Universities had not grate- 
ful and zealous sons. Any attack on the honour or interests of 
either Cambridge or Oxford was certain to excite the resentment of 
a powerful, active, and intelligent class, scattered over every county 
from Northumberland to Cornwall. 

The resident graduates, as a body, were perhaps not superior posi- 
tively to the resident graduates of our time; but they occupied a 
far higher position as compared with the rest of the community. 
For Cambridge and Oxford were then the only two provincial towns 
in the kingdom in which could be found a large number of men 
whose understandings had been highly cultivated. Even the capital 
felt great respect for the authority of the Universities, not only on ques- 
tions of divinity, of natural philosophy, and of classical antiquity, 
but also on points which capitals generally claim the right of decid- 
ing in the last resort. From Will’s coffehouse, and from the pit of 
the theatre royal in Drury Lane, an appeal lay to the two great 
national seats of taste and learning. Plays which had been enthusi- 
astically applauded in London were not thought out of danger till 
they had undergone the more severe judgment of audiences familiar 
with Sophocles and Terence.* 

The great moral and intellectual influence of the English Universi- 
ties had been strenuously exerted on the side of the crown. ‘The 
headquarters of Charles the First had been at Oxford; and the silver 


* Dryden’s Prologues and Cibber’s Memoirs contain abundant proofs of the 
estimation in which the taste of the Oxonians was held by the most a 
puets and actors. 


616 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


tankards and salvers of all the colleges had been melted down to sup- 
ply his military chest. Cambridge was not less loyally disposed. 
She had sent a large part of her plate tothe royal camp; and the rest 
would have followed had not the town been seized by the troops of 
the Parliament. Both Universities had been treated with extreme 
severity by the victorious Puritans. Both had hailed the Restora- 
tion with delight. Both had steadily opposed the Exclusion Bill. 
Both had expressed the deepest horror at the Rye House plot. Cam- 
bridge had not only deposed her Chancellor Monmouth, but had 
marked her abhorrence of his treason in a manner unworthy of a 
seat of learning, by committing to the flames the canvas on which 
his pleasing face and figure had been portrayed by the utmost skill of 
Kneller.* Oxford, which lay nearer to the Western insurgents, had 
given still stronger proofs of loyalty. The students, under the sanc- 
tion of their preceptors, had taken arms by hundreds in defence of 
hereditary right. Such were the bodies which James now deter- 
mined to insult and pluncer in direct defiance of the laws and of his 
plighted faith. 

Several Acts of Parliament, as clear as any that were to be found 
in the statute book, had provided that no person should be ad- 
mitted to any degree in either University without taking the oath of 
supremacy, and another oath of similar character called the oath 
of obedience. Nevertheless, in February 1687, aroyal letter was sent 
to Cambridge directing that a Benedictine monk, named Alban 
Francis, should be admitted a Master of Arts. 

The academical functionaries, divided between reverence for the 
King and reverence for the law, were in great distress, Messengers 
were despatched in all haste to the Duke of Albemarle, who had suc- 
eeeded Monmouth as Chancellor of the University. He was re- 
quested to represent the matter properly to the King. Meanwhile 
the Registrar and Bedells waited on Francis, and informed him that, 
if he would take the oaths according to law, he should instantly be 
admitted. He refused to be sworn, remonstrated with the officers of 
the University on their disregard of the royal mandate, and, finding 
them resolute, took horse, and hastened to relate his grievances at 
Whitehail. 

The heads of the colleges now assembled in council. The best 
legal opinions were taken, and were decidedly in favour of the course 
which had been pursued. But a second letter from Sunderland, in 
high and menacing terms, was already on the road. Albemarle in- 
formed the University, with many expressions of concern, that he 
had done his best, but that he had been coldly and ungraciously re- 
ceived by the King. The academical body, alarmed by the royal 
displeasure, and conscientiously desirous to meet the royal wishes, 


* See the poem called Advice to the Painter upon the Defeat of the Rebels in 
the West. See also another poem, a most detestable one, on the same subject, 
by Stepney, wr) was then studying at Trinity College. 


a eg 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 617 


but determined not to violate the clear law of the land, submitted 
the humblest and most respectful explanations, but to no purpose. 


-JIn a short time came down a summons citing the Vicechancellor and 


the Senate to appear before the new High Commission at Westmin- 
ster on the twenty-first of April. The Vicechancellor was to attend 
in person; the Senate, which consists of all the Doctors and Masters 
of the University, was to send deputies. 

When the appointed day arrived, a great concourse filled the Coun- 
cilchamber. Jeffreys sate at the head of the board. Rochester, 
since the white staff had been taken from him, was no longer a mem- 
ber. In his stead appeared the Lord Chamberlain, John Sheffield, 
Earl of Mulgrave. The fate of this nobleman has, in one respect, 
resembled the fate of his colleague Sprat. Mulgrave wrote verses 
whick scarcely ever rose above absolute mediocrity; but as he was a 
man of high note in the political and fashionable world, these verses 
found admirers. Time dissolved the charm, but, unfortunately for 
him, not until his lines had acquired a prescriptive right to a place 
in all collections of the works of English poets. To this day accord- 
ingly his insipid verses in rhyme and his paltry songs to Amoretta 
and Gloriana are reprinted in company with Comus and Alexander’s 
Feast. The consequence is that our generation knows Mulgrave 
chiefly as a poetaster, and despises him as such. In truth however 
he was, by the acknowledgment of those who neither loved or es- 
teemed him, a man distinguished by fine parts, and in parliamentary 
eloquence inferior to scarcely any orator of his time. His moral 
character was entitled to no respect. He was a libertine without 
that openness of heart and-hand which sometimes makes libertinism 
amiable, and a haughty aristocrat without the elevation of sentiment 
which sometimes makes aristocratical haughtiness respectable. The 
satirists of the age nicknamed him Lord Allprice, and pronounced it 
strange that a man who had so exalted a sense of his dignity should 
be so hard and niggardly in all pecuniary dealings. He had given 
Jeep offence to the royal family by venturing to entertain the hope 
that he might win the heart and hand of the Princess Anne. Disap- 
pointed in this attempt, he had exerted himself to regain by mean- 
ness the favour which he had forfeited by presumption. His epi- 
taph, written by himself, still informs all who pass through West- 
minster Abbey that he lived and died a sceptic in religion: and we 
learn from his memoirs, written by himself, that one of his favourite 
subjects of mirth was the Roman superstition. Yet he began, as 
soon as James was on the throne, to express a strong inclination 
towards Popery, and at length in private affected to be a convert. 
This abject hypocrisy had been rewarded by a place in the Ecclesi- 
astical Commission.* 


* Mackay’s character of Sheffield, with Swift's note ; The Satire on the De 


ponents, 1688; Life of John, Duke of Buckinghamshire. 1729; Barillon, Aug. 30 


618 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


Before that formidable tribunal now appeared the Vicechancellor 
of the University of Cambridge, Doctor John Pechell. He wasa 
man of no great ability or vigour; but he was accompanied by eight 
distinguished academicans, elected by the Senate. One of these was 
Isaac Newton, Fellow of Trinity College, and Professor of mathe- 
matics. His genius was then in the fullest vigour. The great work, 
which entitles him to the highest place among the geometricans and 
natural philosophers of all ages and of all nations, had been some 
time printing under tbe sanction of the Royal Society, and was almost 
ready for publication. He was the steady friend of civil liberty 
and of the Protestant religion but his habits by no means fitted him 
for the conflicts of active life. He therefore stood modestly silent 
among the delegates, and left to men more versed in practical busi- 
ness the task of pleading the cause of his beloved University. 

Never was there a clearer case. The law was express. The prac- 
tice had been almost invariably in conformity with the law. It 
might perhaps have happened that, on a day of great solemnity, 
when many honorary degrees were conferred, a person who had not 
taken the oaths might have passed in the crowd. But such an ir- 
regularity, the effect of mere haste and inadvertence, could not be 
cited as a precedent. Foreign ambassadors of various religions, and 
in particular one Mussulman, had been admitted without the oaths. 
But it might well be doubted whether such cases fell within the 
reason and spirit of the Acts of Parliament. It was not even pre- 
tended that any person to whom the oaths had been tendered and 
who had refused them had ever taken a degree; and this was the 
situation in which Francis stood. The delegates offered to prove that, 
in the late reign, several royal mandates had been treated as nullities 
because the persons recommended had not chosen to qualify accord- 
ing to law, and that, on such occasions, the government had always 
acquiesced in the propriety of the course taken by the University. 
But Jeffreys would hear nothing. He soon found out that the Vice- 


~ 


chancellor was weak, ignorant, and timid, and therefore gave a loose 


to all that insolence which had long been the terror of the Old Bailey. 
The unfortunate Doctor, unaccustomed to such a presence and to 
such treatment, was soon harassed and scared into helpless agitation. 
When other academicians who were more capable of defending their 
cause attempted to speak they were rudely silenced. ‘‘ You are not 
Vicechancellor. When you are, you may talk. ‘Till then it will be- 
come you to hold your peace.” ‘The defendants were thrust out of 
the court without a hearing. In a short time they were called in 
again, and informed that the Commissioners had determined to de- 


1687. Ihave a manuscript lampoon on Mulgrave, dated 1690. It is not destitute 
of spirit. The most remarkable lines are these -— 
‘* Peters (Petre) to-day and Burnet to-morrow. 
Knaves of all sides and religions he'll woe.” 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 618 


prive Pechell of the Vicechancellorship, and to suspend him from all 
the emoluments to which he was entitled as Master of a college, 
emoluments which were strictly of the nature of freehold property. 
“‘As for you,” said Jeffreys to the delegates, ‘‘most of you are Gi- 
vines. 1 will therefore send you home with a text of scripture, ‘Go 
your way and sin no more, lest a worse thing happen to you.’” * 

These proceedings might seem sufficiently unjust and violent. 
But the King had already begun to treat Oxford withsuch rigour that 
the rigour shown towards Cambridge might, by comparison, be 
called lenity. Already University College had been turned by 
Obadiah Walker into a Roman Catholic seminary. Already Christ 
Church was governed by a Roman Catholic Dean. Mass was already 
said daily in both those colleges. The tranquil and majestic city, so 
long the stronghold of monarchical principles, was agitated by pas- 
sions which it had never before known. ‘The undergraduates, with 
the connivance of those who were in authority over them, hooted the 
members of Walker’s congregation, and chanted satirical ditties under 
his windows. Some fragments of the serenades which then disturbed 
the High Street have been preserved. The burden of one ballad was 
this: 

**Old Obadiah 
Sings Ave Maria.’’. 

When the actors came down to Oxford, the public feeling was ex- 
pressed still more strongly. Howard’s Committee was performed. 
This play, written soon after the Restoration, exhibited the Puritans 
in an odious and contemptible light and had therefore been, during 
a quarter of a century, a favourite with Oxonion audiences. It was 
now a greater favourite than ever; for, by a lucky coincidence, one 
of the most conspicuous characters was an old hypocrite named 
Obadiah. The audience shouted with delight when, in the last 
scene, Obadiah was dragged in with a halter round his neck; and the 
acclamations redoubled when one of the players, departing from the 
written text of the comedy, proclaimed that Obadiah should be 
hanged because he had changed his religion. The King was much 

rovoked by this insult. So mutinous indeed was the temper of the 

niversity that one of the newly raised regiments, the same which 
isnow called the Second Dragoon Guards, was quartered at Oxford 
for the purpose of preventing an outbreak.t 

These events ought to have convinced James that he had entered 
dn a course which must lead him to his ruin. To the clamours of 
London he had been long accustomed. They had been raised 
against him, sometimes unjustly, and sometimes vainly. He had re- 
peatedly braved them, and might brave them still. But that Oxford, 


* See the proceedings against the University of Cambridge in the collection 
of State Trials. 

+ Wood’s Athens Oxonienses; Apology for the Life of Colley Cibber; Van 
Citters, March 2-12, 1686. 


620 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


the seat: of loyalty, the head quarters of the Cavalier army, the place 
where his father and brother had held their court when they thought 
themselves insecure in their stormy capital, the place where the 
writings of the great republican teachers had recently been com- 
mitted to the flames, should now be in a ferment of discontent, that 
those high-spirited youths who a few months before had eagerly vol- 
unteered to march against the Western insurgents should now be 
with difficulty kept down by sword and carbine, these were signs full 
of evil omen to the House of Stuart. The warning, however, was 
lost on the dull, stubborn, selfwilled tyrant. He was resolved to 
transfer to his own Church all the wealthiest and most splendid 
foundations of England. It was to no purpose that the best and 
wisest of his Roman Catholic counsellors remonstrated. They 
represented to him that he had it in his power to render a great ser- 
vice to the cause of his religion without violating the rights of prop- 
erty. A grant of two thousand pounds a year from his privy purse 
would support a Jesuit college at Oxford. Such a sum he might 
easily spare. Such a college, provided with able, learned, and zeal- 
ous teachers, would be a formidable rival to the old academical in- 
stitutions, which exhibited but too many symptoms of the languor 
almost inseparable from opulence and security. King James’s Col- 
lege would soon be, by the confession even of Protestants, the first 
place of education in the island, as respected both science and moral 
discipline. This would be the most effectual and the least invidious 
method by which the Church of England could be humbled and the 
Church of Rome exalted. 


The Earl of Ailesbury, one of the most devoted servants of the . 


royal family, declared that, though a Protestant and by no means 
rich, he would himself contribute a thousand pounds towards this 
design, rather than that his master should violate the rights of prop- 
erty and break faith with the Established Church.* The scheme, 
however, found no favour in the sight of the King. It was indeed 
illsuited, in more ways than one, to his ungentle nature. For to 
bend and break the spirits of men gave him pleasure; and to part 
with his money gave him pain. What he had not the generosity to 
do at his own expense he determined to do at the expense of others. 
When once he was engaged, pride and obstinacy prevented him from 
receding; and he was at length led, step by step, to acts of Turkish 
tyranny, to acts which impressed the nation with a conviction that 
the estate of a Protestant English freeholder under a Roman Catholic 
King must be as insecure as that of a Greek under Moslem domina- 
tion. 
Magdalene College at Oxford, founded in the fifteenth century by 
William of Waynflete, Bishop of Winchester and Lord High Chan- 


* Burnet, i. 697; Letters of Lord Ailesbury printed in the European Magazine 
for April, 1795. 


/ 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 621 


cellor, was one of the most remarkable of our academical institutions. 
A graceful tower, on the summit of which a Latin hymn was annu- 
ally chanted by choristers at the dawn of May day, caught far off the 
eye of the traveller who cante from London. As he approached, he 
found that this tower rose from an embattled pile, low and irregular, 
yet singularly venerable, which, embowered in verdure, overhung 
the sluggish waters of the Cherwell. He passed through a gateway 
beneath a noble oriel,* and found himself in a spacious cloister 
adorned with emblems of virtues and vices, rudely carved in grey 
stone by the masons of the fifteenth century. The table of the 
society was plentifully spread in a stately refectory hung with paint- 
ings and rich with fantastic carving. The service of the Church was 
performed morning and evening in a chapel which had suffered 
much violence from the reformers, and much from the Puritans, but 
which was, under every disadvantage, a building of eminent beauty, 
and which has, in our time, been restored with rare taste and skill. 
The spacious gardens along the river side were remarkable for the 
size of the trees, among which towered conspicuous one of the vege- 
table wonders of the island, a gigantic oak, older by a century, men 
said, than the oldest college in the University. 

The statutes of the society ordained that the Kings of England and 
Princes of Wales should be lodged at Magdalene. Edward the 
Fourth had inhabited the building while it was still unfinished. 
Richard the Third had held his court there, had heard disputations 
in the hall, had feasted there royally, and had mended the cheer of 
his hosts by a present of fat bucks from his forests. Two heirs 
apparent of the crown who had been prematurely snatched away, 
Arthur, the elder brother of Henry the Eighth, and Henry, the elder 
brother of Charles the First, had been members of the college. 
Another prince of the blood, the last and best of the Roman Catholic 
Archbishops of Canterbury, the gentle Reginald Pole, had studied 
there. In the time of the civil war Magdalene had been true to the 
cause of the Crown. There Rupert had fixed his quarters; and, 
before some of his most daring enterprises, his trumpets had been 
heard sounding to horse through those quiet cloisters. Most of the 
Fellows were divines, and could aid King Charles only by their 
prayers and their pecuniary contributions. But one member of the 
body, a Doctor of Civil law, raised a troop of undergraduates, and 
fell fighting bravely at their head against the soldiers of Essex. 
When hostilities had terminated, and the Roundheads were masters 
of England, six sevenths of the members of the foundation refused 
to make any submission to usurped authority. They were conse- 
quently ejected from their dwellings and deprived of their revenues. 
After the Restoration the survivors returned to their pleasant abode. 
They had now been succeeded by a new generation which inherited 


* This gateway is now closed. 


622 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


their opinions and their spirit. During the Western rebellion such 
Magdalene men as were not disqualified by their age or profession 
for the use of arms had eagerly volunteered to fight for the Crown. _ 
It would be difficult to name any corporation in the kingdom which 
had higher claims to the gratitude of the House of Stuart.* 

The scciety consisted of a President, of forty Fellows, of thirty 
scholars called Demies, and of a train of chaplains, clerks and chor- 
isters. At the time of the general visitation in the reign of Henry 
the Eighth the revenues were far larger than those of any similar 
institution in the realm, larger by nearly one half than those of the 
magnificent foundation of Henry the Sixth at Cambridge, and con- 
siderably more than twice as large as those which William of Wyke- 
ham had settled on his college at Oxford. In the days of James the 
Second the riches of Magdalene were immense, and were exaggerated 
by report. The college was popularly said to be wealthier than the 
wealthiest abbeys of the Continent. When the leases fell in,—so ran 
the vulgar rumour,—the rents would be raised to the prodigious sum 
of forty thousand pounds a year.+ 

The Fellows were, by the statutes which their founder had drawn 
up, empowered to select their own President from among persons 
who were, or had been, Fellows either of their society or of New 
College. This power had generally been exercised with freedom. 
But in some instances royal letters had been received recommending 
to the choice of the corporation qualified persons who were in favour 
at court; and on such occasions it had been the practice. to show 
respect to the wishes of the sovereign. 

In March 1687, the President of the college died. One of the Fel- 
lows, Doctor Thomas Smith, popularly nicknamed Rabbi Smith, a_ 
distinguished traveller, book collector, antiquary, and orientalist, who 
had been chaplain to the embassy at Constantinople, and had been 
employed to collate the Alexandrian manuscript, aspired to the va- 
cant post. He conceived that he had some claims on the favour of 
the government as a man of learning and as a zealous Tory. His loy- 
alty was in truth as fervent and as steadfast as was to be found in tle 
whole Church of England. He had long been intimately acquainted 
with Parker, Bishop of Oxford, and hoped to obtain by the interest 
of that prelate a royal letter to the college. Parker promised to do 
his best, but soon reported that he had found difficulties. ‘‘ The 
King,” he said, ‘‘ will recommend no person who is not a friend to 
His Majesty’s religion. What can you do to pleasure him as to that 
matter?” Smith answered that, if he becane President, he would ex- 
ert himself to promote learning, true Christianity, and loyalty. 


* Wood’s Athenze Oxonienses; Walker’s Sufferings of the Clergy. 

+ Burnet, i. 697; Tanner’s Notitia Monastica. At the visitation in the twenty- 
sixth year of Henry the brs ste it PU aah that the annual revenue of King’s 
College was 7511; of New College, 4871: of Magdalene, 10791. 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 623 


“That will not do,” said the Bishop. ‘‘If so,” saidSmith manfully, 
“Jet who will be President: I can promise nothing more.” 

The election had been fixed for the thirteenth of April; and the 
Fellows had been summoned to attend. It was rumoured that a 
royal letter would come down recommending one Anthony Farmer to 
the vacant place. This man’s life had been a series of shameful acts. 
He had been a member of the University of Cambridge, and had es- 
caped expulsion only by a timely retreat. He had then joined the 
Dissenters. Then he had gone to Oxford, had entered himself at 
Magdalene, and had soon become notorious there for every kind of 
vice. He generally reeled into his college at night speechless with 
liquor. He was celebrated for having headed a disgraceful riot at 
Abingdon. He had been a constant frequenter of noted haunts of 
libertines. At length he had turned pandar, had exceeded even the 
ordinary vileness of his vile calling, and had received money from 
dissolute young gentlemen commoners for services such as it is not 
good that history should record. This wretch, however, had pre- 
tended to turn Papist. His apostasy atoned for ail his vices; and, 
though still a youth, he was selected to rule a grave and religious so- 
ciety in which the scandal given by his depravity was still fresh. 

As a Roman Catholic he was disqualified for academical office by 
the general law of the land. Never having been a Fellow of Magda- 
lene College or of New College, he was disqualified for the vacant 
Presidency by a special ordinance of William of Waynflete. William 
of Waynflete had also enjoined those who partook of his bounty to 
have a particular regard to moral character in choosing their head; 
and, even if he had left no such injunction, a body chiefly composed 
of divines could not with decency entrust such a man as Farmer with 
the government of a place of education. 

The Fellows respectfully represented to the King the difficulty in 
which they should be placed, if, as was ramoured, Farmer should be 
recommended to them, and begged that, if it were His Majesty’s 
pleasure to interfere in the election, some person for whom they could 
legally and conscientiously vote might be proposed. Of this dutiful 
request no notice was taken. The royal letter arrived. It was 
brought down by.one of the Fellows who had lately turned Papist, 
Robert Charnock, a man of parts and spirit, but of a violent and rest- 
less temper, which impelled him a few years later to an atrocious 
crime and to aterrible fate. On the thirteenth of April the society 
met in the chapel. Some hope was still entertained that the King 
might be moved by the remonstrance which had been addressed to 
him. The assembly therefore adjourned till the fifteenth, which was 
the last day on which, by the constitution of the college, the election 
could take place. 

The fifteenth of April came. Again the Fellows repaired to their 
chapel. No answer had arrived from Whitehall. Two or three of 
the Seniors, among whom was Smith, were inclined to postpone the 


624 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


election once more rather than take a step which might. give offence 
to the King. But the language of the statutes was clear. ‘Those 
statutes the members of the foundation had sworn to observe. The 
general opinion was that there ought to be no further delay. ‘There 
was a hot debate. The electors were too much excited to take their 
seats; and the whole choir was in a tumult. Those who were for 
proceeding appealed to their oaths and to the rules laid down by the 
founder whose bread they had eaten. The King, they truly said, had 
no right to force on them even a qualified candidate. Some expres- 
sions unpleasing to Tory ears were dropped in the course of the dis- 
pute; and Smith was provoked into exclaiming that the spirit of Fer 
guson had possessed his brethren. It was at length resolved by a 
yreat majority that it was, necessary to proceed immediately to the 
election. Charnock left the chapel. The other Fellows, having first 
received the sacrament, proceeded to give their voices. ‘The choice 
fell on John Hough, aman of eminent virtue and prudence, who 
having borne persecution with fortitude and prosperity with meek- 


ness, having risen to high honours and having modestly declined 


honours higher still, died in extreme old age, yet in full vigour of 
mind, more than fifty-six years after this eventful day. 

The society hastened to acquaint the King with the circumstances 
which had made it necessary to elect a President without further de- 
lay, and requested the Duke of Ormond, as patron of the whole Uni- 
versity, and the Bishop of Winchester, as visitor of Magdalene Col- 
lege, to undertake the office of intercessors: but the King was far too 
angry and too dull to listen to explanations. 

Early in June the Fellows were cited to appear before the High 
Commission at Whitehall. Five of them, deputed by the rest, obeyed 
the summons. Jeffreys treated them after his usual fashion. When 
one of them, a grave Doctor named Fairfax, hinted some doubt as to 
the validity of the Commission, the Chancellor began to roar like a 
wild heast. ‘‘ Who is this man? What commission has he to be im- 
pudent here? Seize him. Put him intoadark room. What. does 
he do without a keeper? He is under my care asa lunatic. I won- 
der that nobody has applied to me for the custody of him.” But 
when this storm had spent its force, and the depositions concerning 
the moral character of the King’s nominee had been read, none of the 
commissioners had the front to pronounce that such a man could 
properly be made the head of a great college. Obadiah Walker and 
the other Oxonian Papists who were in attendance to support their 
proselyte were utterly confounded. The Commission pronounced 
Hough’s election void, and suspended Fairfax from his fellowship: 
but about Farmer no more was said; and, in the month of August, 
arrived a royal letter recommending Parker, Bishop of Oxford, to 
the Fellows. 

Parker was not an avowed Papist. Still there was an objection to 
him which, even if the presidency had been vacant, would have been 

‘ 


lt lig he Mei 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 625 


decisive: for he had never been a Fellow of either New College or 
Magdalene. But the presidency was not vacant: Hough had. been 
duly elected; and all the members of the college were bound by oath 
‘to support him in his office. They therefore, with many expressions 
of loyalty and concern, excused themselves from complying with the 
King’s mandate. 

While Oxford was thus opposing a firm resistance to tyranny, a 
stand not less resolute was made in another quarter. James had, 
some time before, commanded the trustees of the Charterhouse, men 
of the first rank and consideration in the kingdom, to admit a Roman 
Catholic named Popham into the hospital which was under their care. 
The Master of the house, Thomas Burnet, a clergyman of distin- 
guished genius, learning, and virtue, had the courage to represent to 
them, though the ferocious Jeffreys sate at the board, that what was 
required of them was contrary both to the will of the founder and to 
an Act of Parliament. ‘‘ What is that to the purpose?” said a court- 
ier who was one of the governors. ‘‘It is very much to the purpose, 
I. think,” answered a voice, feeble with age and sorrow, yet not to be 
heard without respect by any assembly, the voice of the venerable 
Ormond. ‘‘An Act of Parliament,” continued the patriarch of the 
Cavalier party, ‘‘is in my judgment, no light thing.” ‘The question 
was put whether Popham should be admitted; and it was determined 
to reject-him. The Chancellor, who could not well ease himself by 
cursing and swearing at Ormond, flung away in a rage, and was fol- 
lowed by some of the minority. -The consequence was, that there 
was nota quorum left, and that no formal reply could be made to the 
royal mandate. 

The next meeting took place only two days after the High Com- 
mission had pronounced sentence of deprivation against Hough, and 
of suspension against Fairfax. A second mandate under the Great 
Seal was laid before the trustees: but the tyrannical manner in which 
Magdalene College had been treated had roused instead of subduing 
their spirit. They drew up a letter to Sunderland in which they re- 
quested him to inform the King that they could not, in this matter, 
obey His Majesty without breaking the law and betraying their trust. 

There can be little doubt that, had ordinary signatures been ap- 
pended to this document, the King would have taken some violent 
course. But even he was daunted by the opposition of Ormond, 
Halifax, Danby, and Nottingham, the chiefs of all the sections of 
that great party to which he owed his crown. He therefore contentel 
himself with directing Jeffreys to consider what course ought to be 
taken. It was announced at one time that a proceeding wouid 
be instituted in the King’s Bench, at another that the Ecclesiastical 
Commission would take up the case: but these threats gradually died 
away.* 


we 


* A Relation of the Proceedings at the Charterhouse, 1689. 


626 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


The summer was now far advanced; and the King set out on a 
progress, the longest and the most splendid that had been known 
during many years. From Windsor he went on the sixteenth of 
August to Portsmouth, walked round the fortifications, touched some 
scrofulous people, and then proceeded in one of his yachts to South- 
ampton. From Southampton he travelled to Bath, where he remained 
a few days, and where he left the Queen. When he departed, he 
was attended by the High Sheriff of Somersetshire and by a large 
body of gentlemen to the frontier of the country, where the High 
Sheriff of Gloucestershire, with a not less splendid retinue, was in 
attendance. The Duke of Beaufort soon met the royal coaches, and 
conducted them to Badminton, where a banquet worthy of the fame 
which his splendid housekeeping had won for him was prepared. In 
the afternoon the cavalcade proceeded to Gloucester. It was greeted 
two miles from the city by the Bishop and clergy. At the South 
Gate the Mayor waited with the keys. The belis rang and the con- 
duits flowed with wine as the King passed through the streets to the 
close which encircles the venerable Cathedral. He lay that night at 
the deanery, and on the following morning set out for Worcester. 
From Worcester he went to Ludlow, Shrewsbury, and Chester, and 
was everywhere received with outward signs of joy and respect, 
which he was weak enough to consider as proofs that the discontent 
excited by his measures had subsided, and that an easy victory was 
before him. Barillon, more sagacious, informed Lewis that the 
King of England was under a delusion, that the progress had done 
no real good, and that those very gentlemen of Worcestershire and 
Shropshire who had thought it their duty to receive their Sovereign 
and their guest with every mark of honour would be found as re- 
fractory as ever when the question of the test should come on.* 

On the road the royal train was joined by two courtiers who in 
temper and opinions differed widely from each other. Penn was at 
Chester on a pastoral, or, to speak more correctly, on a political tour. 
The chief object of his expedition was to induce the Dissenters, 
throughout England, to support the government. His popularity 
and authority among his brethren had greatly declined since he had 
become a tool of the King and of the Jesuits.| He was, however, 
most graciously received by James, and, on Sunday, was permitted 


* See the London Gazette, from August 18, to September 1, 1687; Barillon 
September 19-29. 

+ ‘‘ Penn, chef des Quakers, qu’on sait étre dans les intéréts du Roi d’Angle- 
terre, est si fort décrié parmi ceux de son parti qu’ils n’ont plus aucune confi- 
ance en lui.’”’—Bonrepaux to Seignelay, Sept. 12-22, 1687. The evidence of 
Gerard Croese is to the same effect. ‘‘ Etiam Quakeri Pennum non amplius, © 
ut ante ita amabant ac magnifaciebant, quidam aversabantur ac fugiebant.”’— 
Historia Quakeriana, lib. ii. 1695. As to Penn's tour, Van Citters wrote on Oct. 
4-14, 1687, ‘‘ Dat den bekenden Arch-Quaker Pen door het Laut op reyse was, om 
die van syne gesintheyt, en andere soo vec] doenlyck, tot des Conings partie en 
Sinnelyckheyt te winnen.”’ : 


» 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 627 


to harangue in the tennis court, while Cartwright preached in the 
Cathedral, and while the King heard mass at an altar which had 
been decked in the Shire Hall. It is said, indeed, that His Majesty 
deigned to look into the tennis court and to listen with decency to his 
friend’s melodious eloquence.* 

The furious Tyrconnel had crossed the sea from Dublin to give an 
account of his administration. All the most respectable English 

toman Catholics looked coldly on him as an enemy of their race and 
a scandal to their religion. But he was cordially welcomed by his 
master, and dismissed with assurances of undiminished confidence 
and steady support. James expressed his delight at learning that in 
a short time the whole government of Ireland would be in Roman 
Catholic hands. The English colonists had already been stripped of 
all political power. Nothing remained but to strip them of their 
property; and this last outrage was deferred only till the codperation 
of an Irish Parliament should have been secured. 

From Cheshire the King turned southward, and, in the full belief, 
that the Fellows of Magdalene College, however mutinous they might 
be, would not dare to disobey a command uttered by his own lips, di- 
rected his course towards Oxford. By the way he made some little 
excursions to places which peculiarly interested him as a King, a 
brother, andason. He visited the hospitable roof of Boscobel, and 
the remains of the oak so conspicuous -in the history of his house. 
He rode over the field of Edgehill, where the Cavaliers first crossed 
swords with the soldiers of the Parliament. On the third of Sep- 
tember he dined in great state at the palace of Woodstock, an ancient 
and renowned mansion, of which not a stoneis now to be seen, but 
of whick the site is still marked on the turf of Blenheim Park by two 
sycamores which grow near the stately bridge. In the evening he 
reached Oxford. He was received there with the wonted honours. 
The students in their academical garb were ranged to welcome him 
on the right hand and on the left, from the entrance of the city to the 
er at gate of Christ Church. He lodged at the deanery, where, among 
other accommodations, he found a chapel fitted up for the celebration 
of the mass.{ On the day after his arrival, the. Fellows of Magdalene 
College were ordered to attend him. When they appeared before 
him, he treated them with an insolence such as had never been shown 
to their predecessors by the Puritan visitors. ‘‘ You have not dealt 


* Cartwright’s Diary, Aug. 30, 1687; Clarkson’s Life of William Penn. 

+ London .Gazette, Sept. 5; Sheridan MS.; Barillon, Sept. 6-16, 1685. “Le 
Roi son maitre,’’ says Barillon, ‘‘ a témoigné une grande satisfaction des 
mesures qu’il a prises, et a autorisé ce qu'il a fait en faveur des Catholiques. 
ll les étallit dans les emplois et les charges, en sorte que l’autorité se trouvera. 
bientot entre leurs mains. I] reste encore beaucoup de choses & faire en ce 
pays 14 pour retirer les biens injustement 6tés aux Catholiques. Mais cela 
ne peut s’exécuter qu’avec le tems et dans l’assemblée d’un parlement en 
Trlande.”’ 

+ London Gazette of Sept. 5, and Sept. 8, 1687. 


628 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


with me like gentlemen,” he exclaimed. ‘‘ You have been unman- 
nerly as well as undutiful.” They fell on their knees and tendered a 
petition. He would not look atit. ‘‘Is this your Church of Eng- 
land loyalty? I could not have believed that so many clergymen of 
the Church of England would have been concerned in such a busi- 
ness. Go home. Get you gone. Iam King. I will be obeyed. Go 
to your chapel this instant; and admit the Bishop of Oxford. Let 
those who refuse look to it. They shall feel the whole weight of my 
hand. ‘They shall know what it is to incur the displeasure of their 
Sovereign.” The Fellows, still kneeling before him, again offered 
their petition. He angrily flung it down. ‘‘Get you gone, [I tell 
you. I will receive nothing from you till you have admitted the 
Bishop.” 

They retired and instantly assembled in their chapel. The ques- 
tion was propounded whether they would comply with His Majesty’s 
command. Smith was absent. Charnock alone answered in the 
affirmative. The other Fellows who were at the meeting declared 
that in all things lawful they were ready to obey the King, but that 
they would not violate their statutes and their oaths. 

The King, greatly incensed and mortified by his defeat, quitted 
Oxford and rejoined the Queen at Bath. His obstinacy and violence 
had brought him into an embarrassing position. He had trusted too 
much to the effect of his own frowns and angry tones, and had 
rashly staked, not merely the credit of his administration, but his 
personal dignity, on the issue of the contest. Could he yield to sub- 
jects whom he had menaced with raised voice and furious gestures? 
Yet could he venture to eject in one day a crowd of respectable 
clergymen from their homes, because they had discharged what the 
whole nation regarded as a sacred duty? Perhaps there might bean 
escape from this dilemma. Perhaps the college might still be terrified, 
caressed, or bribed into submission. The agency of Penn was em- 
ployed. He had too much good feeling to approve of the violent and 
unjust proceedings of the government, and even ventured to express 
part of what he thought. James was, as usual, obstinate in the 
wrong. The courtly Quaker, therefore, did his best to seduce the 
college from the path of right. He first tried intimidation. Ruin, 
he said, impended over the society. The King was highly incensed. 
The case might be a hard one. Most people thought it so, But 
every child knew that His Majesty loved to have his own way and 
could not bear to be thwarted. Penn, therefore, exhorted the Fel- 
lows not to rely on the goodness of their cause, but to submit, or at 
Jeast to temporise.* Such counsel came strangely from one who had 


* See Penn’s Letter to Bailey, one-of the Fellows of the College, in the 
Impartial Relation printed at Oxford in 1688. It has lately been asserted that 
Penn most certainly did not write this letter. Now, the evidence which proves 
the letter to be his is irresistible. Bailey, to whom the letter was addressed, 
ascribed it to Penn, and sent an answer to Penn. In @ very short time both the * 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 629 


himself been expelled from the University for raising a riot about the - 
surplice, who had run the risk of being disinherited rather than take 
oif his hat to the princes of the blood, and who had been more than 
once sent to prison for haranguing in conventicles. He did not suc- 
ceed in frightening the Magdalene men. In answer to his alarming 
hints he was reminded that in the last generation thirty-four out of the 
forty Fellows had cheerfully left their beloved cloisters and gardens, 
their hall and their chapel, and had gone forth not knowing where 
they should find a meal or a bed rather than violate the oath of alle- 
giance. The King now wished them to violate another oath. He 
should find that the old spirit was not extinct. 

Then Penn tried a gentler tone. He had an interview with Hough 
and with some of the Fellows, and, after many professions of sym- 
pathy and friendship, began to hint at a compromise. The King 
could not bear to be crossed. The collere must give way, Parker 
must be admitted. But he was in very bad health. All his prefer- 
ments would soon be vacant. ‘‘ Doctor Hough,” said Penn, ‘‘ may 
tien be Bishop of Oxford. How should you like that, gentlemen?” * 


let'er and the answer appeared in print. Many thousands of copies were cir- 
culated, Penn was pointed out to the whole world as the author of the letter; 
and it is not pretended that he met this public accusation with @ public contra- 
diction. Everybody therefore believed, and was perfectly warranted in 
believing, that he was the author. The letter was repeatedly quoted as his, 
during his own lifetime, not merely in fugitive pamphlets, such as the History 
of the Ecclesiastical Commission, published in 1711, but in grave and elaborate 
books which were meant to descend to posterity. Boyer, in his History of 
William the Third, printed immediately after that King’s death, and reprinted 
in 1703, pronounced the letter to be Penn’s, and added some severe reflections 
on the writer. Kennet, in the bulky History of England published im 1706, a 
history which had a large sale and produced a great sensation, adopted the~ 
very words of Boyer. When these works apponted. Penn was not only alive. 
but in the full enjoyment of his faculties. e cannot have been ignorant of 
the charge brought against him by writers of so much note; and it was not his 
age to hold his peace when unjust charges were brought against him even 

y obscure scribblers. In 1695, a pamphlet on the Exclusion Bill was falsely im- 
puted to him in an anonymous libel. Contemptible as was the quarter from 
which the calumny proceeded, he hastened to vindicate himself. His denial, 
distinct, solemn, and indignant, ppeseny, came forth in print. Isit possible to 
doubt that he would, if he could, have confounded Boyer and Kennet by a 
similar denial? He however silently suffered them to tell the whole nation, 
during many years, that this letter was written by ‘* William Penn, the head of 
the Quakers, or, as some then thought, an ambitious, crafty Jesuit, who under 
a phanatical outside, prompted King James’s designs.” He died without at- 
tempting to clear himself. In the year of his death appeared Eachard’s 
huge volume, containing the History of England from the restoration to the 
Revolution; and Eachard, though often differing with Boyer and Kennet, 
agreed with them in unhesitatingly ascribing the letter to Penn. | 

Such is the evidence on one side. Iam not aware that any evidence deserv- 
ing a serious answer has been produced on the other. (1857.) 

* Here again I have been accused of calumniating Penn; and some show of a 
case has been made out by suppression amounting to falsification. It is 
asserted that Penn did not ‘‘ begin to hint at a compromise;’ and in proof of 
this assertion, a few words, quoted from the letter in which Hough gives an 
account of the interview, are printed in italics. These words are, ‘‘ I thank God 


630 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


Penn had passed his life in declaiming against a hireling ministry. 
He held that he was bound to refuse the payment of tithes, and this 
even when he had bought land chargeable with tithes and had been 
allowed the value of the tithes in the purchase money. According 
to his own principles he would have committed a great sin if he had 
interfered for the purpose of obtaining a benefice on the most hon- 
ourable terms for the most pious divine. Yet to such a degree had 
his manners been corrupted by evil communications, and his under- 
standing obscured by inordinate zeal for a single object, that he did 


not scruple to become a broker in simony of a peculiarly discredita- _ 


ble kind, and to use a bishopric as a bait to tempt a divine to perjury. 


Hough replied with civil contempt that he wanted nothing from the ~ 


Crown but common justice. ‘‘ We stand,” he said, ‘‘on our statutes 
and our oaths; but even setting aside our statutes and oaths, we fecl 
that we have our religion to defend. ‘The Papists have robbed us of 
University College. They have robbed us of Christ Church. The 
fight is now for Magdalene. They will soon have all the rest.” 
Penn was foolish enough to answer that he really believed that the 
Papists would now be content. ‘‘ University,” he suid, ‘‘is a pleasant 
college. Christ Church is a noble place. Magdalene is a fine build- 
ing. The situation is convenient. The walks by the river are de- 
lightful. If the Roman Catholics are reasonable they will be satisfied 
with these.” This absurd avowal would alone have made it impossi- 
ble for Hough and his brethren to yield.* The negotiation was 


he did not offer any proposal by way of accommodation.”’ These words, taken 
by themselves, undoubtedly seem to prove that Penn did not begin to hint at a 
compromise. But their effect is very different indeed when they are read in 
connection with words which immediately follow, without the intervention of 
a full stop, but which have been carefully suppressed. The whole sentence 


runs thus: ‘St thank God, he did not offer any proposal by way of accommoda- ~ 


tion;, only once, upon the mention of the Bishop of Oxford’s indisposition, he 
said, smiling, ‘‘If the Bishop of Oxford die, Dr. Hough may be made Bishop. 
What think you of that, gentlemen ?”? Can anything be clearer than that the 
latter part of the sentence limits the general assertion contained in the former 
part ? Everybody knows that only is perpetually used as synonymous with 
except that. Instances will readily occur to ali who are well acquainted with 
the English Bible, a book from the authority of which there is no appeal when 
the question is about the force of an English word. We read in the book of 
Genesis, to go no further, that every living thing was destroyed; and Noah only 
remained, and they that were with him in the ark; and that Joseph bought all 
the land of Egypt for Pharaoh; only the land of the priests bought he not. 
The defenders of Penn reason exactly like a commentator who should con- 
strue these passages to mean that Noah was drowned in the flood, and that 
Joseph bought the land of the priests for Pharaoh. (1857.) 

*J will give one other specimen of the arts which are thought legitimate 
where the fame of Penn is concerned. To vindicate the language which he 
held on this occasion, if we suppose him to have meant what he said, is 

lainly impossible. We are therefore told that he was in a merry mood; that 

is benevolent heart was so much exhilarated by the sight of several pious 
and learned men who were about to be reduced to beggary for observing their 
oaths and adhering to their religion, that he could not help joking; and that it 
would be most unjust to treat his charming facetiousness as a crime. In order 


i. 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 631 


broken off; and the King hastened to make the disobedient know, as 
he had threatened, what it was to incur his displeasure. | 

A speciil commission was directed to Cartwright, Bishop of Ches- 
ter, to Wright, Chief Justice of the King’s Bench, and to Sir Thomas 
Jenner, a Baron of the Exchequer, appointing them to exercise visi- 
tatorial jurisdiction over the college. On the twentieth of October 
they arrived at Oxford, escorted by three troops of cavalry with 
drawn swords. On the following morning the Commissioners took 
their seats in the hall of Magdalene. Cartwright pronounced a loyal! 
oration, which, a few years before, would have called forth the ac 
clamations of an Oxonian audience, but which was now heard with 
sullen indignation. A long dispute followed. The president de- 
fended his rights with skill, temper, and resolution. He professed 
great respect for the royal authority: but he steadily maintained tha- 
he had by the Jaws of England a freehold interest in the house and 
revenucs annexed to the Presidency. Of that interest he could not 
be deprived by an arbitrary mandate of the Sovereign. ‘‘ Will you 
submit,” said the Bishop, ‘‘to our visitation?’ ‘‘I submit to it,” 
said Hough with great dexterity, ‘‘so far as it is consistent with the 
laws, and no further.” ‘‘ Will you deliver up the key of your lodg- 
ings?” said Cartwright. Hough remained silent. The question was 
repeated; and Hough returned a mild but resolute refusal. Commist 
sioners pronounced him an intruder, and charged the Fellows to assist 
at the admission of the Bishop of Oxford. Charnock eagerly prom- 
ised obedience: Smith returned an evasive answer; but the great 
body of the members of the college firmly declared that they still 
regarded Hough as their rightful head. 

And now Hough himself craved permission to address a few 
words to the Commissioners. They consented with much civility, 
perhaps expecting from the calmness and suavity of his manner that 
he would make some concession. ‘‘ My Lords,” said he, ‘‘ you have 
this day deprived me of my freehold: I hereby protest against all 
your proceedings as illegal, unjust, and null; and I appeal from you 
to our Sovereign Lord the King in his courts of justice.” A loud 
murmur of applause arose from the gownsmen who filled the hall. 
The Commissioners were furious. Search was made for the offenders, 
but in vain. Then the rage of the whole board was turned against 
Hough. ‘‘Do not think to huff us, sir,” cried Jenner, punning on the 
President’s name. ‘‘I will uphold his Majesty’s authority,” said 
Wright, ‘‘ while I have breath in my body. All this comes of your pop- 
ular protest. You have broken the peace. You shall answer it in the 


to make out this defence,—a poor defence even if made out,—the followin 
words are quoted, as part of Hough’s letter, ‘“‘ He had a mind to droll upon us.’ 
This is given as a positive-assertion made by Hough. The context is carefully 
suppressed. My readers will, I believe, be surprised when they learn that 
Hough’s words really are these; ‘‘ When IJ heard him talk at this rate, I con 
eluded he was either off his guard, or had a mind to droll upon us.”’ 


832 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


King’s Bench. I bind you over in one thousand pounds to appear there 
next term. I will see whether the civil power cannot manage you. If 
that is not enough, you shall have the military too.” In truth, Oxford 
was in a state which made the Commissioners not a little uneasy. 
The soldiers were ordered to have their carbines loaded. It was said 
that an express was sent to London for the purpose of hastening the 
arrival of more troops. No disturbance however took place. The 
Bishop of Oxford was quietly installed by proxy: but only two 
members of Magdalene College attended the ceremony. - Many signs 
showed that the spirit of resistance had spread to the common peo- 
ple. The porter of the college threw down his keys. ‘The butler 
refused to scratch Hough’s name out of the butlery book, and was 
instantly dismissed. No blacksmith could be found in the whole 
city who would force the lock ‘of the President’s lodgings. It was- 
necessary for the Commissioners to employ their own servants who 
broke open the door with iron bars. The sermons which on the fol- 
lowing Sunday were preached in the University Church were full of — 
reflections such as stung Cartwright to the quick, though such as he 
could not discreetly resent. : 

And here, if James had not been infatuated, the matter might 
have stopped. The Fellows in general were not inclined to carry 
their resistance further. They were of opinion that, by refusing to 
assist in the admission of the intruder, they had sufficiently proved 
their respect for their statutes and oaths, and that, since he was now 
in actual possession, they might justifiably submit to him as their head, 
till he should be removed by sentence of a competent court. Only one 
Fellow, Doctor Fairfax, refused to yield even to this extent. The 
Commissioners would gladly have compromised the dispute on these 
terms; and during afew hours there was a truce which many thought 
might end in an amicable arrangement; but soon all was again in 
eonfusion. The Fellows found that the popular voice loudly accused 
them of pusillanimity. The townsmen already talked ironically of a— 
Magdalene conscience, and exclaimed that the brave Hough and the 
honest Fairfax had been betrayed and abandoned. Still more annoying 
were the sneers of Obadiah Walker and his brother renegades. This 
then, said those apostates, was the end of all the big words in which the ~ 
society had declared itself resolved to stand by its lawful Presidentand 
by its Protestant faith. While the Fellows, bitterly annoyed by the 
public censure, were regretting the modified submission which they 
had consented to make, they learned that this submission was by no 
means satisfactory to the King. It was not enough, he said, that 
they offered to obey the Bishop of Oxford as President in fact. 
They must distinctly admit the Commission and all that had been 
done under it to be legal; they must acknowledge that they had 
acted undutifully: they must declare themselVes penitent: they must 
promise to behave better in the future, must implore His Majesty’s 
pardon, and must lay themselves at his feet. Two Fellows, of 


a 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 633 
whom the King had no complaint to make, Charnock and Smith, 
were excused from the obligation of making these degrading apolo- 

gies. 
: Even James never committed a grosser error. The Fellows, al- 
ready angry with themselves for having conceded so much, and 
galled by the censure of the world, eagerly caught. at the oppor- 
tunity which was now offered them of regaining the public esteem. 
With one voice they declared that they would never ask pardon for 
being in the right, or admit that the visitation of their college anc. 
the deprivation of their President had been legal. 

Then the King, as he had threatened, laid on them the whole 
weight of his hand. They were by one sweeping edict condemned 
to expulsion. Yet this punishment was not deemed sutticient. It 
was known that many noblemen and gentlemen who possessed 
church patronage would be disposed to provide for men who had 
suffered so much for the laws of England and for the Protestant re- 
ligion. The High Commission therefore pronounced the ejected 
Fellows incapable of ever holding any ecclesiastical preferment. 
Such of them as were not yet in holy orders were pronounced inca- 
pable of receiving the clerical character. James might enjoy the 
thought that he had reduced many of them from a situation in which 
they were surrounded by comforts, and had before them the fairest 

-#professional prospects, to hopeless indigence. 

But all these severities produced an effect directly the opposite of 
that which he had anticipated. The spirit of Englishmen, that 
sturdy spirit which no King of the House of Stuart could ever be 
taught by experience to understand, swelled up high and strong 
againstinjustice. Oxford, the quiet seat of learning and loyalty, was 
in astate resembling that of the City of London on the morning after 
the attempt of Charles the First to seize the five members. The 
Vicechancellor had been asked to dine with the Commissioners on 
the day of the expulsion. He refused. ‘‘ My taste,” he said, ‘‘ dif- 
fers from that of Colonel Kirke. I cannot eat my meals with appe- 
tite under a gallows.” The scholars refused to pull off their caps to 
the new rulers of Magdalene College. Smith was nicknamed Doctor 
Roguery, and was publicly insulted in a coffeehouse. . When Char- 
nock summoned the Demies to perform their academical exercises 
before him, they answered that they were deprived of their law- 
ful governors and would submit to no usurped authority. They 
assembled apart both for study and for divine service. Attempts 
were made to corrupt them by offers of the lucrative fellowships 
which had just been declared vacant: but one undergraduate after 
another manfully answered that his conscience would not not suffer 
him to profit by injustice. One lad who was induced to take a fel- 
lowship was turned out of the hall by the rest. Youths were in- 
vited from other colleges, but with small success. The richest foun- 

dation in the kingdom seemed to have lost ail attractions for needy 


* 


634 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


students. Meanwhile, in London, and all over the country, money 
was collected for the support of the ejected Fellows. .The Princess 
of Orange, to the great joy of all Protestants, subscribed two hun- 
dred pounds. Still, however, the King held on his course. The ex- 
pulsion of the Fellows was soon followed by the expulsion of a 
crowd of Demies. All this time the new President was fast sinking 
under bodily and mental disease. He had made a last feeble effort 
to serve the government by publishing, at the very time when the 
college was in a state of open rebellion against his authority, a de- 
fence of the Declaration of Indulgence, or rather a defence of the doc- 
trine of transubstantiation. This piece called forth many answers, 


and particularly one from Burnet, written with extraordinary vigour — 


and acrimony. A few weeks after the expulsion of the Demies, 
Parker died in the house of which he had violently taken possession. 
Men said that his heart was broken by remorse and shame. He lies 
in the beautiful antechapel of the college; but no monument marks 
his grave. 

Then the King’s plan was carried into full effect. The college 
was turned into a Popish seminary. Bonaventure Giffard, the 
Koman Catholic Bishop of Madura, was appointed President. The 
Roman Catholic service was performed in the chapel. In one day 
twelve Roman Catholics were admitted Fellows. Some servile 
Protestants applied for fellowships, but met with refusals. Smith, 
an enthusiast in loyalty, but still a sincere member of the Anglican 
Church, could not bear to see the altered aspect of the house. He 
absented himself: he was ordered to return into residence: he dis- 
obeyed: he was expelled; and the work of spoliation was complete.* 

The nature of the academical system of England is such that no 
event which seriously affects the interests and honour of either Uni- 
versity can fail to excite a strong feeling throughout the country. 
Every successive blow, therefore, which fell on Magdalene College, 
was felt to the extremities of the kingdom. In the coffeehouses “of 
London, in the Inns of Court, in the closes of all the Cathedral 
towns, in parsonages and manorhouses scattered over the remotest 
shires, pity for the sufferers and indignation against the government 
went on growing. The protest of Hough was everywhere applauded: 
the forcing of his door was everywhere mentioned.with abhorrence; 
and at length the sentence of deprivation fulminated against the 
Kellows dissolved those ties, once so close and dear, which had 
bound the Church of England to the House of Stuart. Bitter resent- 
ment and cruel aE ehension took the place of love and confidence. 


* ipeedinis against sigaaiane Gellese) in Oxon., for not areoting ‘icntneay 
Farmer president of the said College, in the Collection of State Trials; Lut- 
trell’s Diary, June 15, 17, Oct. 24, Dec. 10, 1687; Smith's Narrative; Letter of Dr, 
Richard Rawlinson, dated Oct. 31, 1687; Rer esby’s Memoirs; Burnet, i. 699; 


Oct. *, Oct. 28, 
Nov. 8-18, 18-28, 1687. 


Cartwright’s Diary; Van Citters, ——--—— 
Nov ft Nov, 7, 


a. 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 635 


There was no vrebendary, no rector, no vicar,-whose mind was not 
haunted by the thought that, however quiet his temper, however 
obscure his situation, he might, in a few months, be driven from his 
dwelling by an arbitrary edict to beg in a ragged cassock with his 


_ wife and children, while his freehold, secured to him by laws of im. 


memorial antiquity and by the royal word, was occupied by some 
apostate. This then was the reward of that heroic loyalty never 
once found wanting through the vicissitudes of fifty tempestuous 
years. It was for this that the clergy had endured spoliation and 
persecution in the cause of Charles the First. It was for this that 
they had supported Charles the Second in his hard contest with the 
Whig opposition. It was for this that they had stood in the front of 
the battle against those who sought to despoil James of his birth- 
right. To their fidelity alone their oppresser owed the power which 
he was now employing to their ruin. They had long been in the 
habit of recounting in acrimonious language all that they had suf- 
fered at the hand of the Puritan in the day of his power. Yet for 
the Puritan there was some excuse. He was an avowed enemy. he 
had wrongs to avenge: and even he, while remodelling the ecclesias- 
tical constitution of the country, and ejecting all who would not 
subscribe to his Covenant, had not been altogether without compas- 
sion. He had at least granted to those whose benefices he seized a 
pittance sufficient to support life. But the hatred felt by the King 
towards that Church which had saved him from exile and placed him 
on the throne was not to be so easily satiated. Nothing but the utter 
ruin of his victims would content him. It was not enough that they 


were expelled from their homes and stripped of their revenues. 


They found every walk of life towards which men of their habits 
could look for a subsistence closed against them with malignant care, 
oy nothing left to them but the precarious and degrading resource 
of alms. 

The Anglican clergy, therefore, and that portion of the laity 
which was strongly attached to Protestant episcopacy, now regarded 
the King with those feelings which injustice aggravated by ingrati- — 
tude naturally excites. Yet had the Churchman still many scruples 
of conscience and honour to surmount before he could bring himself 
to oppose the government by force. He had been taught that pas- 
sive obedience was enjoined without restriction or exception by the 
divine law. He had professed this opinion ostentatiously. He had 
treated with contempt the suggestion that an extreme case might 
possibly arise which would justify a people in drawing the sword 
against regal tyranny. Both principle and shame therefore restrained 
him from imitating the example of the rebellious Roundheads, while 
any hope of a peaceful and legal deliverance remained; and such a 
hope might reasonably be cherished as long as the Princess of Orange 
stood next in succession to the crown. If he would but endure with 
patience this trial of his faith, the Jaws of nature would soon do for 


636 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


him what he could not, without sin and dishonour, do for himself. 
The wrongs of the Church would be redressed: her property and 
dignity would be fenced by new guarantees; and those wicked cour- 
tiers who had, in the day of her adversity, injured and insulted her, 
would be signally punished. 


The event to which the Church of England looked forward as an 


honourable and peaceful termination of her troubles was one of 
which even the most reckless members of the Jesuitical cabal could 
not think without painful apprehensions. If their master should die, 


leaving them no better security against the penal laws than a Declar-_ 


ation which the general voice of the nation pronounced to be a nul- 
lity, if a Parliament, animated by the same spirit which had prevailed 
in the Parliaments of Charles the Second, should assemble round the 
throne of a Protestant sovereign, was it not probable that a terrible 
retribution would be exacted, that the old laws against Popery would 
be rigidly enforced, and that new laws still more severe would be 
added to the statute book? The evil counsellors had long been tor- 
mented by these gloomy apprehensions, and some of them had con- 
templated strange and desperate remedies. James had _ scarcely 
mounted the throne when it began to be whispered about Whitehall 
that, if the Lady Anne would turn Roman Catholic, it might not be 
impossible, with the help of Lewis, to transfer to her the birthright 
of her elder sister. At the French embassy this scheme was warmly 
approved, and Bonrepaux gave it as his opinion that the assent. of 
James would be easily obtained.* Soon, however, it became mani- 
fest that Anne was unalterably attached to the Established Church. 
All thought of making her Queen was therefore relinquished. Nev- 
ertheless, a small knot of fanatics still continued to cherish a wild hope 
that they might be able to change the order of succession. The 
pian formed by these men was set forth in a minute of which a rude 
French translation has been preserved. It was to be hoped, they 
said, that the King might be able to establish the true faith without 
resorting to extremities; but in the worst event, Le might leave his 
‘crown at the disposal of Lewis. It was better for Englishmen to be 
vassals of France than the slaves of the Devil.| This extraordinary 
document, was handed about from Jesuit to Jesuit and from courtier 
to courtier, till some eminent Roman Catholics, in whom bigotry 
had not extinguished patriotism, furnished the Dutch ambassador 


ee a ee 


* «Quand on connoit le dedans de cette cour aussi intimement que je la con- 
nois, on peut croire que sa Majesté Britannique donnera volontiers dans ces 
sortes de projets.’’—Bonrepaux to Seignelay, March 18-28, 1686 

t “ Que, quand pour, établir la religion Catholique et pour la confirmer icy, 
il (James) devroit se rendre en quelque fagon dépendant de la France, et met- 
tre la décision de la succession 4 la couronne entre les mains de ce monarque 
1a, qu'il seroit obligé de la faire, parcequ’il vaudroit mieux pour ses sujets 
qwils devinssent vassaux du Roy de France, étant Catholiques, que de de- 
meurer comme esclaves du Diable.’’ This paper is in the archives of both 
France and Holland. 


- i 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 637 


with a copy. He put the paper into the hands of James. James, 
greatly agitated, pronounced it a vile forgery contrived by some 
pamphieteer in Holland. The Dutch minister resolutely answered 
that he could prove the contrary by the testimony of several .distin- 
guished members of His Majesty’s own Church, nay, that there 
would be no difficulty in pointing out the writer, who, after all, had 
written only what many priests and many busy politicians said every 
day in the galleries of the palace. .The King did not think it expedi- 
ent to ask who the writer was, but, abandoning the charge of forgery, 
protested, with great vehemence and solemnity, that no thought of 
disinheriting his eldest daughter had ever crossed his mind. ‘‘ No- 
body,” he said, ‘‘ever dared to hint such a thing to me. I never 
would listen to it. God does not command us to propagate the true 
religion by injustice, and this would be the foulest, the most un- 
natural injustice.” * Notwithstanding all these professions, Barillon, 
a few days later, reported to his court that James had begun to listen 
to suggestions respecting a change in the order of succession, that 
the question was doubtless a delicate one, but that there was reason 
to hope that, with time and management, a way might be found 
to settle the crown on some Roman Catholic, to the exclusion of 
the two Princesses. During many months this subject continued 
to be discussed by the fiercest and most extravagant Papists 
about the court, and candidates for the regal office were actually 
named. t 

It is not probable however that James ever meant to take a course 
so insane. He must have known that England would never bear for 
a single day the yoke of an usurper who was. also a Papist, and that 
any attempt to set aside the Lady Mary would have been withstood 
to the death, both by all those who had supported the Exclusion 
Bill, and by all those who had opposed it. ‘There is, however, no 
doubt that the King was an accomplice in a plot less absurd, but not 
less unjustifiable, against the rights of his children. Tyrconnel had, 
with his master’s approbation, made arrangements for separating Ire- 
land from the empire, and for placing her under the protection of 
Lewis, as soon as the crown should devolve on a Protestant sove- 
reign. Bonrepaux had been consulted, had imparted the design to 
his court, and had been instructed to assure Tyrconne] that France 
would lend effectual aid to the accomplishment of this great project.§ 


* Van Citters, Aug. 6-16, 17-27, 1686; Barillon, Aug. 9-19. : 

+ Barilion, Sept. 13-23, 1686. ‘* La succession est une matiére fort délicate & 
traiter. Je sais pourtant qu’on en parle au Roy d’Angleterre, et qu’on ne dé- 
sespére pas avec le temps de trouver des moyens pour faire passer la couronne 
sur la téte d’un héritier Catholique.” 

~ Bonrepaux, July 11-21, root 

ug. 25, 


§ Bonrepaux to Seignelay, * 


most remarkable despatch: ‘J e scay bien certainement que l’intention du 
Roy d’ Angleterre est de faire perdre ce royaume (Ireland) & son successeul, et 


M. E. {.—21 


2 
1687 I will quote a few words from this 


688 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


These transactions, which, though perhaps not in all parts accurately 
known at the Hague, were strongly suspected there, must not be 
left out of the account if we would pass a just judgment on the 
course taken a few months later by the Princess of Orange. ‘Those 
who pronounce her guilty of a breach of filial duty must admit that 
her fault- was at least greatly extenuated by her wrongs. If, to 
serve the cause of her religion, she broke through the most sacred 
ties of consanguinity, she only followed her father’s example. She 
did not assist to depose him until he had conspired to disinherit 
her. 


assist the enterprise of Tyrconnel when all thoughts of that enter- 
prise were abandoned. James had caught the first glimpse of a hope 
which delighted and elated him. The Queen was with child. 

Before the end of October 1687 the great news began to be whis- 
pered. It was observed that Her Majesty had absented herself from 
some public ceremonies on the plea of indisposition. It was said 
that many relics, supposed to possess extraordinary virtue, had been 
hung about her. Soon the story made its way from the palace to 
the coffeehouses of the capital, and spread fast over the country. But 
a very small minority the rumour was welcomed with joy. The 
great body of the nation listened with mingled derision and fear. 
There was indeed nothing very extraordinary in what had happened. 
The king had but just completed his fifty-fourth year. The Queen 
was in the summer of life. She had already borne four children who 
died young; and long afterwards. she was delivered of another child 
whom nobody had any interest in treating as supposititious, and who 
was therefore never said to be so. As, however, five years had 
elapsed since her last pregnancy the people, under the influence of 
that delusion which leads men to believe what they wish, had ceased 
to entertain any apprehension that she would give an heir to the 
throne. On the other hand, nothing seemed more natural and prob- 
able than that the Jesuits should have contrived a pious fraud. It 
was certain that they must consider the accession of the Princess of 
Orange as one of the greatest calamities which could befall their 
Church. It was equally certain that they would not be very scrupu- 
lous about doing whatever might be necessary to save their Church 
from a great calamity. In books written by eminent members of 
the Society, and licensed by its rulers, it was distinctly laid down 


eer a 


de le fortifieren sorte que tous ses sujets Catholiques y puissent avoir un asile 
assuré. Son projet est de mettre les choses en cet estat dans le cours de cing 
années.”’ In the Secret Consults of the Romish party in Ireland, printed in 
1690, there isa passage which shows that this negotiation had not been kept 
strictly secret. ‘‘Though the King kept it private from most of his council, 
yet certain it is that he had promised the French King the disposal of that 


Scarcely had Bonrepaux been informed that Lewis had resolved to 


government and kingdom when things had attained to that growth as to be fi¢ © 


bear it,”’ 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 639 


that means even more shocking to all notions of justice and humanity 
than the introduction of a spurious heir into a family might lawfully 
be employed for ends less important than the conversion of a 
heretical kingdom. It had got abroad that some of the king’s ad- 
visers, and even the King himself, had meditated schemes for de- 
frauding the Lady Mary, either wholly or in part, of her rightful 
inheritance. A suspicion, not indeed well founded, but by no means 
so absurd as is commonly supposed, took possession of the public 
mind. The folly of some Roman Catholics confirmed the vulgar 
prejudice. They spoke of the auspicious event as strange, as mira- 
culous, as an exertion of the same Divine power which had made 
Sarah proud and happy in Isaac, and had given Samuel to the prayers 
of Hannah. Mary’s mother, the Duchess of Modena, had lately 
died. A short time before her death she had, it was said, implored 
the Virgin of Loretto, with fervent vows and rich offerings, to be- 
stow a son on James. The King himself had, in the preceding 
August, turned aside from his progress to visit the Holy Well, and 
had there besought Saint Winifred to obtain for him that boon with- 
out which his great designs for the propagation of the true faith 
could be but imperfectly executed. The imprudent zealots who 
dwelt on these tales foretold with confidence that the unborn infant 
would be a boy, and offered to back their opinion by laying twenty 
guineas to one. Heaven, they affirmed, would not have interfered, 
but for a great end. One fanatic announced that the Queen would 
give birth to twins, of whom the elder would be King of England, 
and the younger Pope of Rome. Mary could not conceal the delight 
with which she heard this prophecy, and her ladies found that they 
could not gratify her more than by talking of it. The Roman Catho- 
lics would have acted more wisely if they had spoken of the preg- 
nancy as of a natural event, and if they had borne with moderation 
their unexpected good fortune. Their insolent triumph excited the 
popular indignation. Their predictions strengthened the popular 
suspicions. From the Prince and Princess of Denmark down to 
porters and laundresses nobody alluded to the promised birth with- 
out a sneer. The wits of London described the new miracle in 
rhymes which, it may well be supposed, were not the most delicate, 
The rough country squires roared with laughter if they met with 
any persons simple enough to believe that the Queen was really 
likely to be again a mother. A royal proclamation appeared, com- 
manding the clergy to read a form of prayer and thanksgiving which 
had been prepared for this joyful occasion by Crewe and Sprat. 
The clergy obeyed; but it was observed that the congregations made 
no responses and showed no signs of reverence. Soon in all the 
coffeehouses was handed about a brutal lampoon on the courtly 
prelates whose pens the King had employed. Mother East had also 


her full share of abuse. Into that homely monosyllable our ancestors 


640 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


had degraded the name of the great house of Este which reigned at 
Modena.* 
The new hope which elated the King’s spirits was mingled with 
many fears. Something more than the birth of a Prince of Wales 
was necessary to the success of the plans formed by the Jesuitica] 
party. It was not very likely that James would live till his son 
should be of age to exercise the regal functions. The law had made 
no provision for the case of a minority The reigning sovereign was 
not competent to make provision for a case by will. The legislature 
only could supply the defect. + If James should die before the defect 
had been supplied, leaving a successor of tender years, the supreme 
power would undoubtedly devolve on Protestants. Those Tories 
who held most firmly the doctrine that nothing could justify them in 
resisting their liege lord would have no scruple about drawing their 
swords against a Popish woman who should dare to usurp the guar- 
dianship of the realm and of the infant sovereign. The result of a 
contest could scarcely be matter of doubt. ‘The Frince of Orange, or 
his wife, would be Regent. The young King would be placed in 
the hands of heretical instructors, whose arts might speedily efface 
from his mind the impressions which might have been made on it in 
the nursery. He might prove another Edward the Sixth; and the 
blessing granted to the intercession of the Virgin Mother and of 
Saint Winifred might be turned into a curse.| This was a danger 
against which nothing but an Act of Parliament could be a security, 
and how was such an Act to be obtained? Everything seemed to 
indicate that, if the Houses were convoked, they would come up to 
Westminster animated by the spirit of 1640. -The event of the 
country elections could hardly be doubted. The whole body of 
freeholders, high and low, clerical and Jay, was strongly excited 
against the government. In the great majority of those towns where 
the right of voting depended on the payment of local taxes, or on the 
occupation of a tenement, no courtly candidate could dare to show 
his face. A very large part of the House of Commons was returned 
by members of municipal corporations, These corporations had re- 
cently been remodelled for the purpose of destroying the influence of 
the Whigs and Dissenters. More than a hundred constituent bodies 


Oct. 28, Nov. 22, " % 
* Van Citters, ce: 1687; the Princess Anne to the Princess of Orange, 


ov. 7, Dec. 2, 
March 14 and 20, 1687-8; Barillon, Dec. 1-11, 1687; Revolution Politics: the song 
“Two Toms and a Nat;’’ Johnstone, April 4, 1688; Secret Consults of the 
Romish Party in Ireland, 1690. 

+ The King’s uneasiness on this subject is strongly described by Ronquillo, 
Dec. 12-22, 1687. ‘‘Un Principe de Vales y un Duque de York y otro di Locha- 
osterna (Lancaster, I suppose,) no bastan 4 reducir la gente; porque el Rey 
tiene 54 afios, y vendra 4 mori’, dejando los hijos pequefos, y que entonces el 
reyno se apoderara dellos, y los nombraraé tutor, y los educaré en la religion 
orotestante, contra Ja disposicion que de jare el Rey, y la autoridad de la 

eyna.”’ 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 641 


had been deprived of their charters by tribunals devoted to the 
crown, or had been induced to avert compulsory disfranchisement by 
voluntary surrender. Every Mayor, every Alderman, every Town 
Clerk, from Berwick to Helstone, was a Tory and a Churchman: but 
Tories and Churchmen were now no longer devoted to the sovereign. 
The new municipalities were more unmanageable than the old muni- 
vipalities had ever been, and would undoubtedly return representa- 
tives whose first act would be to impeach all the Popish Privy Coun- 
cillors, and all the members of the High Commission. 

In the Lords the prospect was scarcely less gloomy than in the 
Commons. Among the temporal peers it was certain that there would 
be an immense majority against the King’s measures; and on that 
episcopal bench, which seven years before had unanimously supported 
him against those who had attempted to deprive him of his birth- 
right, he could now look for support only to four or five sycophants 
despised by their profession and by their country.* 

To all men not utterly blinded by passion these difficulties appeared 
insuperable. The most unscrupulous slaves of power showed signs 
of uneasiness. Dryden muttered that the King would only make 
mattters worse by trying to mend them, and sighed for the golden 
days of the careless and goodnatured Charles. Even Jeffreys wav- 
ered. As long as he was poor, he was perfectly ready to face ob- 
loquy and public hatred for lucre. But he had now, by corruption 
and extortion, accumulated great riches; and he was more anxious to 
secure them than to increase them. His slackness drew on him a 
sharp reprimand from the royal lips. -In dread of being deprived of 
the Great Seal, he promised whatever was required of him: but Ba- 
rillon, in reporting this circumstance to Lewis, remarked that the 
King of England could place little reliance on any man who had any- 
thing to lose. 

Nevertheless James determined to persevere. The sanction of a 
Parliament was necessary to his system. The sanction of a free and 
lawful Parliament it was evidently impossible to obtain; but it might 
not be altogether impossible to bring together by corruption, by intim- 
idation, by violent exertions of prerogative, by fraudulent distor- 


* Three lists framed at this time are extant; one in the French archives, the 
other two in the archives of the Portland family. In these lists every peer is 
entered under one of three heads, For the Repeal of the Test, Against the Re- 
peal, and Doubtful. According to one list the numbers were, 31 for, 86 against, 
and 20 doubtful; according to another, 33 for, 87 against, and 19 doubtful; ac< 
eording to the third, 35 for, 92 against, and 10 doubtful. Copies of the three 
lists are among the Mackintosh MSS. 

+ There isin the British Museum a letter of Dryden to Etherege, dated Feb. 
1688. Ido not remember to have seen it in print. ‘‘ Oh,’ says Dryden, ‘ that 
our monarch would encourage noble idleness by his own example, as he of 
blessed memory did before him. For my mind misgives me that he will not 
much advance his affairs by stirring.” 


Aug. 28, 


642 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. Z 


tions of law, an assembly which might call itself a Parliament, and 
might be willing to register any edict of the Sovereign. Returning 
officers must be appointed who would avail themselves of the slightest 
pretence to declare the King’s friends duly elected. Every placeman, 
from the highest to the lowest, must be made to understand that, if 
he wished to retain his office, he must, at this conjuncture, support 
the throne by his vote and interest. The High Commission mean- 
while would keep its eye on the clergy. The boroughs, which had 
just been remodelled to serve one turn, might be remodelled again ta 
serve another. By such means the King hoped to obtain a majority 
in the House of Commons. The Upper House would then be at his 
mercy. He had undoubtedly by law the power of creating peers 
without limit; and this power he was fully determined to use. He 
did not wish, and indeed no sovereign can wish, to make the highest 
honour which is in the gift of the crown worthless. He cherished 
the hope that, by calling up some heirs apparent to the assembly in 
which they must ultimately sit, and by conferring English titles on 
some Scotch and Irish Lords, he might be able to secure a majority 
without ennobling new men in such numbers as to bring ridicule on 
the coronet and the ermine. But there was no extremity to which he 
was not prepared to go in case of necessity. When in a large com- 
pany an opinion was expressed that the peers would prove intracta- 
ble, ‘‘ Oh, silly,” cried Sunderland, turning to Churchill; ‘‘ your 
troop of guards shall be called up to the House of Lords.” * 

Having determined to pack a Parliament, James set himself ener- 
getically and methodically tothe work. <A proclamation appeared in’ 
the Gazette, announcing that the King had determined to revise the 
Commissions of Peace and of Lieutenancy, and to retain in public em- 
ployment only such gentlemen as should be disposed to support his 
policy + A committee of seven Privy Councillors sate at Whitehall, 
for the purpose of regulating—such was the phrase,—the municipal 
corporations. In this committee Jeffreys alone represented the Prot- 
estant interest. Powis alone represented the moderate Roman Cath- 
olics. All the members belonged to the Jesuitical faction. Among 
them was Petre, who had just been sworn of the Council. ‘Till he 
took lis seat at the board, his elevation had been kept a profound 
secret from everbody but Sunderland. The public indignation at 
this new violation of the law was clamorously expressed; and it was 
remarked that the Roman Catholics were even louder in censure than 
the Protestants. The vain and ambitious Jesuit was now charged 
with the business of destroying and reconstructing half the constitu- 
ent bodies in the kingdom. Under the Committee of Privy Coun- 
cillors a subcommittee consisting of bustling agents less eminent in 


RS RT SE 


ab Told by Lord Bradford, who was present, tc Dartmouth; note on Burnet, i. 
+ London Gazette, Dec. 12, 1687. 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 643 
rank was entrusted with the management of details. Local subcom- 
mittees of regulators all over the country: corresponded with the cen- 
tral board at Westminster.* 

The persons on whom James chiefly relied for assistance in his new 
and arduous enterprise were the Lords Lieutenants. Every Lord 
Lieutenant received written orders directing him to go down imme- 
diately into his county. There he was to summon before him all his 
deputies, and all the Justices of the Peace, and to put to them a series 
of interrogatories framed for the purpose of ascertaining how they 
would act at a general election. He was to take down the answers in 
writing, and to transmit them to the government. He was to furnish 
lists of such Roman Catholics, and such Protestant Dissenters, as 
might be best qualified for the bench and for commands in the mili- 
tia. He was also to examine into the state of all the boroughs in his 
county, and to make such reports as might be necessary to guide the 
operations of the board,of regulators. It was intimated to him that 
he must himself perform these duties, and that he could not be per- 
mitted to delegate them to any other person. | 

The first effect produced by these orders would have at once so- 
bered a prince less infatuated than James. Half the Lords Lieuten- 
ants of England peremptorily refused to stoop to the odious service 
which was required of them. They were immediately dismissed. 
All those who incurred this glorious disgrace were peers of high con- 
sideration; and all had hitherto been regarded as firm supporters of 
monarchy. Some names in the list deserve especial notice. 

The noblest subject in England, and indeed, as Englishmen loved 
to say, the noblest subject in Europe, was Aubrey de Vere, twentieth 
and last of the old Earls of Oxford. He derived his title, through an 
uninterrupted male descent, from a time when the families of Howard 
and Seymour were still obscure, wher the Nevilles and Percies en- 
joyed only a provincial celebrity, and when even the great name of 
_ Plantagenet had not yet been heard in England. One chief of the 

house of De Vere had held high command at Hastings; another had 
marched, with Godfrey and Tancred, over heaps of slaughtered Mos- 
lem, to the sepulchre of Christ. The first Earl of Oxford had been 
minister of Henry Beauclerc. The third Earl had been conspicuous 
among the Lords who extorted the Great Charter from John. The 
seventh Earl had fought bravely at Cressy and Poictiers. ‘The thir- 
teenth Earl had, through many vicissitudes of fortune, been the chief 
of the party of the Red Rose, and had led the van on the decisive day 
of Bosworth. The seventeenth Ear] had shone at the court of Eliza- 
beth, and had won for himself an honourable place among the early 


* Bonrepaux to Seignelay, November 14-24; Van Citters, November 15-25; 
Lords’ Journals, December 20, 1689, 


Oct. 28, 
+ Van Citters, —-— 1687 


Nov. 7, 


644 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


masters of English poetry - The nineteenth Earl had fallen in arms 
for the Protestant religion and for the liberties of Europe under the 
walls of Maestricht. His son Aubrey, in whom closed the longest 
and most illustrious line of nobles that England has seen, a man of 
loose morals, but of inoffensive temper and of courtly manners, was 
Lord Lieutenant of Essex, and Colonel of the Blues. His nature was 
not factious; and his interest inclined him to avoid a rupture with the 
Court; for his estate was encumbered, and his military eommand lu- 
crative. He was summoned to the royal closet; and an explicit dec- 
Jaration of intentions was demanded from him, ‘‘Sir.” answered 
Oxford, ‘‘I will stand by Your Majesty against a.1 enemies to the 
last drop of my blood. But this is matter of conscience, and i cannot 
comply.” He was instantly deprived of his lieutenancy and of his 
regiment.* 

Inferior in antiquity and splendour to the House of De Vere, but 
to the house of De Vere alone, was the House of Talbot. Ever since 
the reign of Edward the Third, the Talbots had sate among the peers 
of the realm. The Earldom of Shrewsbury had been bestowed, in 
the fifteenth century, on John Talbot, the antagonist of the Maid of 
Orleans. He had long been remembered by his countrymen with 
tenderness and reverence as one of the most illustrious of those war- 
riors who had striven to erect a great English empire on the Conti- 
nent of Europe. The stubborn courage which he had shown in the 
midst of disasters had made him an object of interest greater than 
more fortunate captains had inspired; and his death had furnished a 
singularly touching scene to our early stage. His posterity had, dur- 
ing two centuries, flourished in great honour, The head of the 
family at the time of the Restoration was Francis, the eleventh Earl, 
a Roman Catholic. His death had been attended by circumstances 
such as, even in those licentious times which immediately followed 
the downfall of the Puritan tyranny, had moved men to horror and 
pity. The Duke of Buckingham in the course of his vagrant amours 
was fora moment attracted by the Countess of Shrewsbury. She 
was easily won. Her Lord challenged the gallant and fell. Some 
said that the abandoned woman witnessed the combat in man’s attire, 
and others that she clasped her victorious lover to her bosom while 
his shirt was still dripping with the blood of her husband. The 
honours of the murdered man descended to his infant son Charles. 
As the orphan grew up to man’s estate, it was generally acknowledged 
that of the young nobility of England none had been so richly gifted 
by nature. His person was pleasing, his temper singularly sweet, 
his parts such as, if he had been born in a humble rank, might well 


* Halstead’s Succinct Genealogy of the Family of Vere, 1685; Collins’s His- 
torical Collections. See in the Lords’ Journals, and in Jones’s Reports, the 
proceedings respecting the earldom of Oxford, in March and April 1625-6. The 
exordium of the speech of Lord Chief Justice Crewe is among the finest speci- 
mens of the ancient English eloquence. Van Citters, Feb. 7-17, 1688. 


° 


v HISTORY: OF ENGLAND. 645 


have raised him to civil greatness. All these advantages he had so 
improved that, before he was of age, he was allowed to be one of the 
finest gentlemen and finest scholars of his time. His learning is 
proved by notes which are still extant in his handwriting on books in 
almost every department of literature. He spoke French like a gen- 
tleman of Lewis’s bedchamber, and Italian like a citizen of Florence. 
It was impossible that a youth of such parts should not be anxious to 
understand the grounds on which his family had refused to conform 
to the religion of the state. He studied the disputed points closcly, 
submitted his doubts to priests of his own faith, laid their answers 
before Tillotson, weighed the arguments on both sides long and at- 
tentively, and, after an investigation which occupied two years, 
declared himself a Protestant. The Church of England welcomed 
the illustrious convert with delight. His popularity was great, and 
became greater when it was known that royal solicitations and 
promises had been vainly employed to seduce him back to the super- 
stition which he had abjured. The character of the young Earl did 
not however develope itself in a manner quite satisfactory to those 
who had borne the chief part in his conversion. His morals by no 
means escaped the contagion of fashionable libertinism. In truth 
the shock which had overturned his early prejudices had at the same 
time unfixed all his opinions, and left him to the unchecked guidance 
of his feelings. But, though his principles were unsteady, his im- 
pulses were so generous, his temper so bland, his manners so gracious 
and easy, that it was impossible not to love him. He wasearly called 
the King of Hearts, and never, through a long, eventful and chequered 
life, lost his right to that name.* 

Shrewsbury was Lord Lieutenant of Staffordshire and Colonel of one 
of the regiments of horse which had been raised in consequence of the 
Western insurrection. He now refused to act under the board of 
regulators, and was deprived of both his commissions. 

None of the English nobles enjoyed a larger measure of public 
favour than Charles Sackville, Earl of Dorset. He was indeed a-re- 
markable man. In his youth he had been one of the most notorious 
libertines of the wild time which followed the Restoration. He had 
been the terror of the City watch, had passed many nights in the 
round house, and had at least once occupied a cell in Newgate. His 
passion for Betty Morrice, and for Nell Gwynn, who called him her 
Charles the First, had given no small amusement and scandal to the 
town.+ Yet, in the midst of follies and vices, his courageous spirit, 


* Coxe’s Shrewsbury Correspondence; Mackay’s Memoirs; Life of Charles 
Duke of Shrewsbury, 1718; Burnet, i. 762; Birch’s Life of Tillotson, where the 
reader will find a letter from Tillotson to Shrewsbury, which seems to me a 
model of serious, friendly, and gentlemanlike reproof. : 

+ The King was only Nell’s Charles III. Whether Dorset or Major Charles 
Hart had the honour of being her Charles I. is a point open to dispute. Butthe 
evidence in favour of Dorset’s claim seems to me to preponderate, See the 
suppressed passage of Burnet, i. 263, and Pepys’s Diary, Oct. 26, 1667, ; 


646 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


his fine understanding, and his natural goodness of heart, had been 
conspicuous. Men said that the excesses in which he indulged were 
common between him and the whole race of gay young Cavaliers, 
but that his sympathy with human suffering, and the generosity with 
which he made reparation to those whom his freaks had injured, 
were all his own. His associates were astonished by the distinction 
which the public made between him and them. ‘‘ He may do what 
he chooses,” said Wilmot; ‘‘he is never in the wrong.” ‘The judg- 
ment of the world became still more favourable to Dorset when he 
had been sobered by time and marriage. His graceful manners, his 
brilliant conversation, his soft heart, his open hand, were universally 
praised. No day passed, it was said, in which some distressed family 
had not reason to bless his name. And yet, with all his good nature, 
such was the keenness of his wit that scoffers whose sarcasm all the 
town feared stood in craven fear of the sarcasm of Dorset. All 
political parties esteemed and caressed him: but politics were not 
much to his taste. Had he been driven by necessity to exert himself, 
he would probably have risen to the highest post in the state: but he 
was born to rank so high and wealth so ample that many of the mo- 
tives which impel men to engage in public affairs were wanting to 
him. He took just so much part in parliamentary and diplomatic 
business as sufficed to show that he wanted nothing but inclination 
to rival Danby and Sunderland, and turned away to pursuits which 
pleased him better. Like many other men who, with great natural 
abilities, are constitutionally and habitually indolent, he became an 
intellectual voluptuary, and a master of all those pleasing branches 
of knowledge which can be acquired without severe application. He 
was allowed to be the best judge of painting, of sculpture, of archi- 
tecture, of acting, that the court could show. On questions of polite 
learning his decisions were regarded at all the coffeehouses as without 
appeal. More than one clever play which had failed on the first 
representation was supported by his single authority against the 
whole clamour of the pit, and came forth successful from the second 
trial. The delicacy of his taste in French composition was extolled 
by Saint Evremond and La Fontaine. Such a patron of letters Eng- 
land had never seen. His bounty was bestowed with equal judgment 
and liberality, and was confined to no sect or faction. Men of genius, 
estranged from each other by literary jealousy or by difference of 
political opinion, joined in acknowledging his impartial kindness. 
Dryden owned that he had been saved from ruin by Dorset’s princely 
generosity. Yet Montague and Prior, who had keenly satirised Dry- 
den, were introduced by Dorset into public life; and the best comedy 
of Dryden’s mortal enemy, Shadwell, was written at Dorset’s country 
seat. The munificent Earl might, if such had been his wish, have 
been the rival of those of whom he was content to be the benefactor. 
For the verses which he occasionally composed, unstudied as the 

are, exhibit the traces of a genius which, assiduously cultivated, 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 647 


would have produced something great. In the small volume of his 
works may be found songs which have the easy vigour of Suckling, 
and little satires which sparkle with wit as splendid as that of 
Butler.* 

Dorset was Lord Lieutenant of Sussex; and to Sussex the board of 
regulators looked with great anxiety: for in no other county, Corn- 
wall and Wiltshire excepted, were there so many smail boroughs, 
He was ordered to repair to his post. No person who knew him expect 
ed that he would obey. He gavesuch an answer as became him, and 
was informed that his services were no longer needed. The interest 
which his many noble and amiable qualities inspired was heightened 
when it was known that he had received by the post an anonymous 
billet telling him that, if he did not promptly comply with the King’s 
wishes, all his wit and popularity should not save him from assassin- 
ation. A similar warning was sent to Shrewsbury. Threatening let- 
ters were then much more rare than they afterwards became. It is 
therefore not strange that the people, excited as they were, should 
have been disposed to believe that the best and noblest Englishmen 
were really marked out for Popish daggers.t Just when these letters 
were the talk of all London, the mutilated corpse of a noted Puritan 
was found in the streets. It was soon discovered that the murderer 
had acted from no religious or political motive. But the first suspi- 
cions of the populace fell on the Papists. The mangled remains were 
carried in procession to the house of the Jesuits in the Savoy; and 
during a few hours the fear and rage of the populace were scarcely 
less violent than on the day when Godfrey was borne to the grave. 

The other dismissions must be more concisely related. ‘The Duke 
of Somerset, whose regiment had been taken from him some months 
before, was now turned out of the lord lieutenancy of the East Riding 
of Yorkshire. The North Riding was taken from Viscount Faucon- 
berg, Shropshire from Viscount Newport, and Lancashire from the 
Earl of Derby, grandson of that gallant Cavalier who had faced death 
so bravely, both on the field of battle and on the scaffold, for the 
House of Stuart. The Earl of Pembroke, who had recently served 


* Pepys’s Diary; Prior’s Dedication of his Poems to the Duke of Dorset; 
Johnson’s Life of Dorset; Dryden’s Essay on Satire and Dedication of the Essay 
on Dramatic Poesy. The affection of Dorset for his wife and his strict fidelity 
to her are mentioned with great contempt by that profligate coxcomb Sir 
George Etheredge in his letters from Ratisbon, December 9-19, 1687, and Janu- 
ary 16-26, 1688. See also Shadwell’s Dedication of the Squire of Alsatia; Bur- 
net, i. 264; Mackay’s Characters. Some parts of Dorset’s character are well 
touched in this epitaph, written by Pope: 

** Yet soft his nature, though severe his luy;” 
and again: k 
‘‘ Blest courtier, who could King and country please, 
Yet sacred keep his friendship and his ease.” 
an. 


+ Barillon, Jan. 9-19, 168; Van Citters, ——- 10. 


¢ Adda, Feb. 3-13, 10-20, 1688, ; 


648 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


the Crown with fidelity and spirit against Monmouth, was displaced 
in Wiltshire, the Earl of Rutland in Leicestershire, the Earl of 
Bridgewater in Buckinghamshire, the Earl of Thanet in Cumberland, 
the Earl of Northampton in Warwickshire, the Ear] of Abingdon in 
Oxfordshire, and the Earl of Scarsdale in Derbyshire. Scarsdalé 
was also deprived of a regiment of cavalry, and of an office in the 
household of the Princess of Denmark. She made a struggle to re- 
tain his services, and yielded only to a peremptory command of her 
father. The Earl of Gainsborough was ejected, not only from the 
Heutenancy of Hampshire, but also from the government of Ports- 
mouth and the rangership of the New Forest, two places for which 
he had, only a few months before, given five thousand pounds.* 

The King could not find Lords of great note, or indeed Protestant 
Lords of any sort, who would accept the vacant offices. It was ne- 
cessary to assign two shires to Jeffreys, a new man whose landed 
property was small, and two to Preston, who was not even an Eng- 
lish peer. The other counties which had been left without governors 
were entrusted, with scarcely an exception, to known Roman Catho- 
lics, or to courtiers who had secretly promised the King to declare 
themselves Roman Catholics as soon as they could do so with pru- 
dence. ; 

At length the new machinery was put in action; and soon from 
every corner of the realm arrived the news of complete and hopeless 
failure. The catechism by which the Lords Lieutenants had been 
directed to test the sentiments of the country gentlemen consisted of 
three questions. Every magistrate and Deputy Lieutenant was to be 
asked, first, whether, if he should be chosen to serve in Parliament, 
he would vote for a bill framed on the principles of the Declaration 
of Indulgence; secondly, whether, as an elector, he would support 
candidates who would engage to vote for such a bill; and thirdly, 
whether, in his private capacity, he would aid the King’s benevolent 
designs by living in friendship with people of all religious persua- 
sions. 

As bee as the questions got abroad, a form of answer, drawn up 
with admirable skill, was circulated all over the kingdom, and was 
generally adopted. It was to the following effect: ‘‘Asa member of 
the House of Commons, should I have the honour of a seat there, 1 
shall think it my duty carefully to weigh such reasons as may be ad- 
duced in debate for and against a Bill of Indulgence, and then to vote | 
according to my conscientious conviction. As an elector, I shall 
give my support to candidates whose notions of the duty of a repre- 
sentative agree with my own. As a private man, it is my wish to 


Nov. 29, 


* Barillon, Dec. 5-15, 8-18, 12-22, 1687; Van Citters, > Dec, 2-12, 


+ Van Citters, we 1687; Lonsdale’s Memoirs, 


Dec. 9, 


* 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 649 


live in peace and charity with every body.” This answer, far more 
provoking than a direct refusal, because slightly tinged with a sober 
and decorous irony which could not well be resented, was all that 
the emissaries of the Court could exact from most of the country gen- 
tlemen. Arguments, promises, threats, were tried in vain. ‘The 
Duke of Norfolk, though a Protestant, and though dissatisfied with 
the proceedings of the government, had consented to become its agent 
in two counties. He went first to Surrey, where he soon found that 
nothing could be done.* He then repaired to Norfolk, and returned 
to inform the King that, of seventy gentlemen who bore office in that 
great province, only six had held out hopes that they should support 
the policy of the Court.+ The Duke of Beaufort, whose authority 
extended over four English shires and over the whole principality of 
Wales, came up to Whitehall with an account not less discouraging. t 
Rochester was Lord Lieutenant of Hertfordshire. All his little stock 
of virtue had been expended in his struggle against the strong temp- 
tation to sell his religion for lucre. He was still bound to the Court 
by a pension of four thousand pounds a year, and in return for this 
pension he was willing to perform any service, however illegal or 
degrading, provided that he were not required to go through the 
forms of a reconciliation with Rome. He had readily undertaken to 
manage his county; and he exerted himself, as usual, with indiscreet 
heat and violence. But his anger was thrown away on the sturdy 
squires to whom he addressed himself. They told him with one 
voice that they would send up no man to Parliament who would vote 
for taking away the safeguards of the Protestant religion.§ The 
same answer was given to the Chancellor in Buckinghamshire. | 
The gentry of Shropshire, assembled in Ludlow, unanimously re- 
fused to fetter themselves by the pledge which the King demanded 
of them.§{ The Earl of Yarmouth reported from Wiltshire that, of 
sixty magistrates and Deputy Lieutenants with whom he had con- 
ferred, only seven had given favourable answers, and that even those 
seven could not be trusted.** The renegade Peterborough made 
no progress in Northamptonshire.++ His brother renegade Dover 
was equally unsuccessfulin Cambridgeshire.{{ Preston brought cold 
news from Cumberland and Westmoreland. Dorsetshire and Hunt- 
ingdonshire were animated by the same spirit. The Karl of Bath, 
after a long canvass, returned from the West with gloomy tidings. 
He had been authorised to make the most tempting offers to the in- 


* Van Citters, 10." 1687. + Ibid. °° 1687-8. + Ibid. 

§ Rochester’s offensive warmth on this occasion is twice noticed by John- 
stone, November 25, and December 8, 1687. His failure is mentioned by Van 
Citters, December 6-16. 


| Van fseere. Deo. 6-16, 1687. q Ibid. pee. ea 1687. 
a+ March 30, s é ., Nov. 22, 
** Thid. “April 9, 1687, ++ Ibid. “Dec. 2, ~1687- 


t} Ibid. Nov. 15-25, 1687 4 


650 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


habitants of that region. In particular he had promised that, if 
proper respect were shown to the royal wishes, the trade in tin 


should be freed from the oppressive restrictions under which it lay. ~ 


But this lure, which at another time would have proved irresistible, 
was now slighted. All the Justices and Deputy Lieutenants of 
Devonshire and Cornwall, without a single dissenting voice, de- 
clared that they would put life and property in jeopardy for the 
King, but that the Protestant religion was dearer to them than 
either life or property. ‘‘And sir,” said Bath, “if your Majesty 
should dismiss all these gentlemen, their successors would give ex- 
actly the same answer.”* If there was any district in which the 
government might have hoped for success, that district was Lan- 
cashire. Considerable doubt had been felt as to the result of what 
was passing there. In no part of the realm had so many opulent and 
honourable families adhered to the old religion. The heads of many 
of those families had already, by virtue of the dispensing power, 
been made Justices of the Peace and entrusted with commands in 
the militia. Yet from Lancashire the new Lord Lieutenant, him- 
self a Roman Catholic, reported that two thirds of his deputies and 
of the magistrates were opposed to the Court.t But the proceed- 
ings in Hampshire wounded the King’s pride still more deeply. 
Arabella Churchill had, more than twenty years before, borne him a 
son widely renowned, ‘at a later period, as one of the most skilful 
captains of Europe. ‘The youth, named James Fitzjames, had 
as yet given no promise of eminence which he afterwards at- 
tained: but his manners were so gentle and inoffensive that he had 
no enemy except Mary of Modena, who had long hated the child of 
the concubine with the bitter hatred of a childless wife. A small 
part of the Jesuitical faction had, before the pregnancy of the Queen 
was announced, seriously thought of setting him up as a competitor 
of the Princess of Orange.{ When it is remembered how signally 
Monmouth, believed by the populace to be legitimate, and though 
the champion of the national religion, had failed in a similar com- 
petition, it must seem extraordinary that any man should have been 
so much blinded by fanaticism as to think of placing on the throne 
one who was universally known to be a Popish bastard. Jt does 
not appear that this absurd design was ever countenanced by the 
King. The boy, however, was acknowledged ; and whatever dis- 
tinctions a subject, not of the royal blood, could hope to attain were 
bestowed on him. He had been created Duke of Berwick ; and he 
was now loaded with honourable and lucrative employments, taken 
from those noblemen who had refused to comply with the royal 
commands. He succeeded the Earl of Oxford as Colonel of the Blues, 


* Van Citters, April 10-20, 1688. 

+The anxiety about Lancashire is mentioned by Van Citters, in a despatch 
dated Nov. 18-28, 1687; the result in a despatch dated four days later, 

t Bonrepaux, J uly 11-21, 1687. 


4 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 651 


and the Earl of Gainsborough as Lord Lieutenant of Hampshire, 
Ranger of the New Forest, and Governor of Portsmouth. On the 
frontier of Hampshire Berwick expected to have been met, accord- 
ing to custom, by a long cavalcade of baronets, knights, and squires: 
but not a single person of note appeared to welcome him. He sent 
out letters commanding the attendance of the gentry: but only five 
or six paid the smallest attention to his summons. The rest did not 
wait to be dismissed. They declared that they would take no part 
in the civil or military government of their country while the King 
was represented there by a Papist, and voluntarily laid down their 
commissions. * 

Sunderland, who had been named Lord Lieutenant of Warwick- 
shire in the room of the Earl of Northampton, found some excuse 
for not going down to face the indignation and contempt of the gen- 
try of that shire; and his plea was the more readily admitted because 
the King had, by that time, begun to feel that the spirit of the rustic 
gentry was not to be bent.+ 

It is to be observed that those who displayed this spirit were not 
the old enemies of the House of Stuart. The Commissions of Peace 
and Lieutenancy had long been carefully purged of all republican 
names. The persons from whom the Court had in vain attempted 
to extract any promise of support were, with scarcely an exception, 
Tories. The elder among them could still show scars given by the 
swords of Roundheads, and receipts for plate sent to Charles the 
First in his distress. The younger had adhered firmly to James 
against Shaftesbury and Monmouth. Such were the men who were 
now turned out of office in a mass by the very prince to whom they 
had given such signal proofs of fidelity. Dismission however only 
made them more resolute. It had become a sacred point of honour 
among them to stand stoutly by one another in this crisis. There 
could be no doubt that, if the suffrage of the freeholders were fairly 
taken, not a single knight of the shire favourable to the policy of 
the government would be returned. Men therefore asked one 
another, with no small anxiety, whether the suffrages were likely to 
be fairly taken. The list of the Sheriffs for the new year was im- 
patiently expected. It appeared while the Lord Lieutenants were 
still engaged in their canvass, and was received with a general cry of 
alarm and indignation. Most of the functionaries who were to preside 
at the county elections were either Roman Catholics or Protestant 
Dissenters, who had expressed their approbation of the Indulgence.f 
For a time the most gloomy apprehensions prevailed: but soon they 
began to subside. There was a good reason to believe that there 
was a point beyond which the King could not reckon on the support 
even of those Sheriffs who were members of his own Church. Be- 


* Van Citters, Feb. 3-13, 1688. + Ibid. April 5-15, 1688, 
t London Gazette, Dec. 5, 1687; Van Citters, Dec. 6-16. 


652 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


tween the Roman Catholic courtier and the Roman Catholic country 
gentleman there was very little sympathy. That cabal which domi- 
neered at Whitehall consisted partly of fanatics, who were ready to 
break through all rules of morality and to throw the world into con- 
fusion for the purpose of propagating their religion, and partly of 
hypocrites who, for lucre, had apostatised from the faith in which 
they had been brought up, and who now overacted the zeal charac- 
teristic of neophytes. Both the fanatical and the hypocritical court- 
iers were generally destitute of all English feeling. Im some of them 
devotion to their Church had extinguished every national sentiment. 
Some were Irishmen, whose patriotism consisted in mortal hatred of 
the Saxon conquerors of Ireland. Some, again, were traitors, who 
received regular hire from a foreign power. Some had passed a great 
part of their lives abroad, and either were mere cosmopolites, or felt 
a positive distaste for the manners and institutions of the country 
which was now subjected to their rule. Between such men and the lord 
of a Cheshire or Staffordshire manor who adhered to the old Church 
there was scarcely anything in common. He was neither a fanatic 
nor a hypocrite. He was a Roman Catholic because his father and 
grandfather had been so; and he held his hereditary faith, as men 
generally hold a hereditary faith, sincerely, but with little en- 
thusiasm. In all other points he was a mere English squire, and, if 
he differed from the neighbouring squires, differed from them by 
being somewhat more simple and clownish than they. The dis- 
abilities under which he lay had prevented his mind from expanding 
to the standard, moderate as that standard was, which the minds of. 
Protestant country gentlemen then ordinarily attained. Excluded, 
when a boy, from Eton and Westminster, when a youth, from | 
Oxford and Cambridge, when a man, from Parliament and from the 
bench of justice, he generally vegetated as quietly as the elms of the 
avenue which led ‘to his ancestral grange. His cornfields, his dairy, 
and his cider press, his grey-hounds, his fishing rod, and his gun, 
his ale and his tobacco, occupied almost all his thoughts. With 
his neighbours, in spite of his religion, he was generally on 
ood terms. They knew him to be unambitious and inoffensive. 
de was almost always of a good old family. He was always 
a Cavalier. His peculiar notions were not obtruded, and 
caused no annoyance. He did not, like a Puritan, torment 
himself and others with scruples about everything that was 
pleasant. On the contrary, he was as keen a sportsman, and 
as jolly a boon companion, as any man who had taken the oath 
of supremacy and the declaration against transubstantiation. He 
met his brother squires at. the cover, was in with them at the death, 
and, when the sport was over, took them home with him to a veni- 
son pasty and to October four years in bottle. The oppressions 
which he had undergone had not been such as to impel him to any 
desperate resolution. Even when his Church was barbarously perse- 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 653 


cuted, his life and property were in little danger. The most impu- 
dent false witnesses could hardly venture to shock the common sense 
of mankind by accusing him of being aconspirator. The Papists 
whom Oates selected for attack were peers, prelates, Jesuits, Bene- 
dictines, a busy political agent, a lawyer in high practice. The 
Roman Catholic country gentleman, protected by his obscurity, by 
his peaceable demeanour, and by the good will of those among whom 
he lived, carted his hay or filled his bag with game unmolested, 
while Coleman and Langhorne, Whitbread and Pickering, Arch- 
bishop Plunkett and Lord Stafford, died by the halter or theaxe. An 
attempt was indeed made by a knot of villains to bring homea charge 
of treason to Sir Thomas Gascoyne, an aged Roman Catholic bar- 
onet of Yorkshire: but twelve gentlemen of the West Riding, 
who knew his way of life, could not be convinced that their honest 
old acquaintance had hired cutthroats to murder the King, and, in 
spite of charges which did very little honour to the bench, found a 
verdict of Not Guilty? Sometimes, indeed, the head of an oid and re- 
spectable provincial family might reflect with bitterness that he was 
excluded, on account of his religion, from places of honour and 
authority which men of humbler descent and less ample estate were 
thought competent to fill: but he was little disposed to risk land and 
life in a struggle against*overwhelming odds; and his honest Eng- 
lish spirit would have shrunk with horror from means such as were 
contemplated by the Petres and Tyrconnels. Indeed he would have 
been as ready as any of his Protestant neighbours to gird on his 
sword, and put pistols in his holsters, for the defence of his native 
Jand against an invasion of French or Irish Papists. Such was the 
general character of the men to whom James now looked as to his 
most trustworthy instruments for the conduct of county elections. 
ile soon found that they were not inclined to throw away the esteem 
of their neighbours, and to endanger their heads and their estates, by 
rendering him an infamous and criminal service. Several of them 
refused to be Sheriffs. Of those who accepted the shrievalty many 
declared that they would discharge their duty as fairly as if they 
were members of the Established Church, and would return no can- 
didate who had not a real majority.* 


* About twenty years before this time a Jesuit had noticed the retiring charac- 
ter of the Roman Catholic country gentlemen of England. ‘‘ Lanobilta Inglese, 
senon 6 legata in servigio di Corte, 6 in opera di maestrato, vive, e godeil pit dell 
anno alla campagna, ne’ suoi palagie poderi, dove son liberie padroni; e cid 
tanto pit sollecitamente i Cattolici quanto pit utilmente, si come meno osservati 
cola.’’—L’Inghilterra descritta dal P. Daniello Bartoli. Roma, 1667. 

‘Many of the Popish Sheriffs,’’ Johnstone wrote, ‘‘ have estates, and declare 
that whoever expects false returns from them will be disappointed. The Popish 
gentry that live at their houses in the country are much different from those 
that live here in town. Several of them have refused to be Sheriffs or Deputy 
Lieutenants.’’ Dec. 8, 1687. 

Ronquillo says the same. ‘‘ Algunos Catolicos que fueron nombrados por she- 
rifes se han excusado,”’ Jan. 9-19, 1688. He some months later assured his court 


654 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


If the King could place little confidence even in his Roman Catho- 


lic Sheriffs, still less could he rely on the Puritans. Since the pub-— 


lication of the Declaration several months had elapsed, months 
of unintermitted controversy. Discussion had opened the eyes of 
many Dissenters: but the acts of the government, and especially the 
severity with which Magdalene College had been treated, had done 
more than even the pen of Halifax to alarm and to unite all classes of 
Protestants. Most of those sectaries who had been induced to ex- 
press gratitude for the Indulgence were now ashamed of their error, 
and were desirous of making atonement by casting their lot with the 
great body of their countrymen. 

In consequence of this change in the feeling of the Nonconform- 
ists, the government found almost as great difficulty in the towns as 
in the counties. When the regulators began their work, they had 
taken it for granted that every Dissenter who had availed himself of 
the Indulgence would be favourable to the King’s policy. They 
were therefore confident that they should be able to fill all the muni- 
cipal offices in the kingdom wlth staunch friends, In the new char- 
ters a power had been reserved to the crown of dismissing magis- 
trates at pleasure. This power was now exercised without limit. It 
was by no means equally clear that James had the power of appoint- 
ing magistrates: but whether it belonged to him or not, he deter- 
mined to assume it. Everywhere, from the Tweed to the Land’s 
End, Tory functionaries were ejected; and the vacant places were 
filled with Presbyterians, Independents and Baptists. In the new 
charter of the City of London the Crown had reserved the power of 
displacing the Masters, Wardens, and Assistants of all the companies. 
Accordingly more than eight hundred citizens of the first considera- 
tion, all of them members of that party which had opposed the Ex- 
clusion Bill, were turned out of office by a single edict. In a short 
time appeared a supplement to this long list.* But scarcely had the 
new officebearers been sworn in when it was discovered that they 
were aS unmanageable as their predecessors. At Newcastle on 
Tyne the regulators appointed a Roman Catholic Mayor and Puri- 
tan Aldermen. No doubt was entertained that the municipal body, 
thus remodelled, would vote an address promising to support the 
King’s measures. The address however was negatived. The Mayor 
went up to London in a fury, and told the King that the Dissenters 
were all knaves and rebels, and that in the whole corporation the gov- 


that the Catholic country gentlemen would willingly consent to a compromise of 
which the terms should be that the penal laws should be abolished and the test 
retained. ‘‘Kstoy informado,” he says, ‘‘ que los Catolicos de las provincias no 
lo reprueban, pues no pretendiendo oficios, y siendo solo algunos da la Corte los 


provechosos, les parece que mejoran su estado, quedando seguros ellos y sus © 


descendientes en la religion, en la quietud, y en.la seguridad de sus haciendas.”’ 
Tag, 1688. 
* Privy Council Book, Sept. 25, 1687; Feb. 21, 1687-8. 


/ 


a ae 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 655 


ernment could not reckon on more than four votes.* At Reading 
twenty-four Tory Aldermen were dismissed. Twenty-four new Alder- 
men were appointed. Twenty-three of these immediately declared 
against the Indulgence, and were dismissed in their turn.+ In the 
course of a few days the borough of Yarmouth was governed by three 
different sets of magistrates, all equally hostile to the Court.{ These 
are mere examples of what was passing all over the kingdom. The 
Dutch Ambassador informed the States that in many towns the pub- 
lic functionaries had, within one month, been changed twice, and 
even thrice, and yet changed in vain.§ From the records of the 
Privy Council it appears that the number of regulations, as they 
were called, exceeded two hundred.|| The regulators indeed found 
that, in not a few places, the change had been for the worse. The dis- 
contented Tories, even while murmuring against the King’s policy, 
had constantly expressed respect for his person and his office, and 
had disclaimed all thought of resistance. Very different was the 
language of some of the new members of corporations. It was said 
that old soldiers of the Commonwealth, who, to their own astonish- 
ment and that of the public, had been made Aldermen, gave the 
agents of the Court very distinctly to understand that blood should 
flow before Popery and arbitrary power were established in Eng- 
land. {| 

The regulators found that little or nothing had been gained by 
what had as yet been done. There was one way, and one way only, 
in which they could hope to effect their object. The charters of the 
boroughs must be resumed; and other charters must be granted con- 
fining the elective franchise to very small constituent bodies ap- 
pointed by the sovereign.** 

But how was this plan to be carried into effect? In a few of the new 
charters, indeed, a right of revocation had been reserved to the crown: 
but the rest James could get into his hands only by voluntary surren- 
der on the part of corporations, or by judgment of a court of law. 
Few corporations were now disposed to surrender their charters vol- 
untarily: and such judgments as would suit the purposes of the gov- 
ernment were hardly to be expected even from sucha slave as Wright. 
The writs of Quo Warranto which had been brought a few years be- 
fore for the purpose of crushing the Whig party had been condemned 
by every impartial man. Yet those writshad at least the semblance of 
justice; for they were brought against ancient municipal bodies, and 


*Records of the Corporation, quoted in Brand’s History of Newcastle; John- 
stone, Feb. 21, 1687-8. 

+ Johnstone, Feb. 21, 1687-8. + Van Citters, Feb. 14-24, 1688. 

§ Ibid. May 1-11, 1688. 

| In the margin of the Privy Council Book may be observed the words ‘‘Sec- 
ond Regulation,’ and ‘‘ Third Regulation,’ when a corporation had been re- 
modelled more than once. 

Johnstone, May 23, 1688. ** Thid. Feb. 21, 1688. 


656 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


there were few ancient municipal bodies in which some abuse, suffi- 
cient to afford a pretext for penat proceeding, had not grown up in 
the course of ages. But the corporations now to be attacked were 
still in the innocence of infancy. The oldest among them had not 
completed its fifth year. Itwasimpossible that many of them should 
have committed offences meriting disfranchisement. The Judges 
themselves were uneasy. ‘They represented that what they were 
required to do was in direct opposition to the plainest principles of 
law and justice: but all remonstrance was vain. The boroughs were 
commanded to surrender their charters. Few complied; and the 
course which the King took with those few did not encourage others 
to trust him. In several towns the right of voting was taken away 
from the commonalty, and given to a very small number of persons, 
who were required to bind themselves by oath to support the candi- 
dates recommended by the government. At Tewkesbury, for exam- 
ple, the franchise was confined to thirteen persons. Yet even this 
number was too large. Hatred and fear had spread so widely through 
the community that it was scarcely possible to bring together in any 
town, by any process of packing, thirteen men on whom the Court 
could absolutely depend. It was rumoured that the majority of the 
new constituent body of Tewkesbury was animated by the same sen- 
timent which was general throughout the vation, and would, when 
the decisive day should arrive, send true Protestants to Parliament. 
The regulators in great wrath threatened to reduce the number of 
electors to three.* Meanwhile the great majority of the boroughs 
firmly refused to give up their privileges. Barnstaple, Winchester, 
and Buckingham, distinguished themselves by the boldness of their 
opposition. At Oxford the motion that the city should resign its 
franchises to the King was negatived by eighty votes to two.t The 
Temple and Westminster Hall were ina ferment with the sudden rush 
of business from all corners of the kingdom. Every lawyer in high 
practice was overwhelmed with the briefs from corporations, Ordi- 
nary litigants complained that their business was neglected.{ It was 
evident that a considerable time must elapse before judgment could 
be given in so great a number of,important cases. Tyranny could ill 
brook this delay. Nothing was omitted which could terrify the re- 
fractory boroughs into submission. At Buckingham some of the 
municipal officers had spoken of Jeffreys in language which was not 
laudatory. They were prosecuted, and were given to understand 
that no mercy should be shown to them unless they would ransom 
themselves by surrendering their charter.¢ At Winchester still more 
violent measures were adopted. <A large body of troops was marched 
into the town for the sole purpose of burdening and harassing the 


* Johnstone, Feb. 21, 1688. + Van Citters, March 20-30, 1688, 


4 -y May 22, 
¢ Van Citters, May 1-11, 1688, § Ibid. ae 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 657 


inhabitants.* The town continued resolute; and the public voice 
loudly accused the King of imitating the worst crimes of his brother 
of France. The dragonades, it was said, had begun. There was in- 
deed reason for alarm. It had occurred to James that he could not 
more effectually break the spirit of an obstinate town than by quar- 
tering soldiers on the inhabitants. He must have known that this 
practice had sixty years before excited formidable discontents, and 
had been solemnly pronounced illegal by the Petition of Right, a 
statute scarcely less venerated by Englishmen than the Great Charter. 
But he hoped to obtain from the courts of law a declaration that even 
the Petition of Right could not control the prerogative. He actually 
consulted the Chief Justice of the King’s Bench on this subject :+ 
but the result of the consultation remained secret; and in a very few 
weeks the aspect of affairs became such that a fear stronger than the 
fear of the royal displeasure began to impose some restraint even on 
the most servile magistrates. 

While the Lords Lieutenants were questioning the Justices of the 
Peace, while the regulators were remodelling the boroughs, all the 
public departments were subjected to a strict inquisition. The palace 
was first purified. Every battered old Cavalier, who, in return for. 
blood and lands lost in the royal cause, had obtained some small place 
under the Keeper of the Wardrobe or the Master of the Harriers, was 
called upon to choose between the King and the Church. The Com- 
nussioners of Customs and Excise were ordered to attend His Majesty 
at the’Treasury. ‘There he demanded from them a promise to sup- 
port his policy, and directed them to require a similar promise from 
all their subordinates. One Customhouse officer notified his sub- 
mission to the royal will in a way which excited both merriment and 
compassion. ‘‘I have,” he said, ‘‘fourteen reasons for obeying His 
Majesty’s commands, a wife and thirteen young children.”§ Such 
reasons were indeed cogent; yet there were not a few instances, in 
which, even against such reasons, religious and patriotic feelings pre- 
vailed. 

There is ground to believe that the government at this time seriously 
meditated a blow which would have reduced many thousands of fam- 
ilies to beggary, and would have disturbed the whole social system 
of every part of the country. No wine, beer, or coffee could be sold 
without a license. It was rumoured that every person holding such 
license would shortly be required to enter into the same engagements 
which had been imposed on public functionaries, or to relinquish his 
trade.) It seems certain that, if such a step had been taken, the 
houses of entertainment and of public resort all over the kingdom 


— 


* Van Citters, May 1-11, 1688. +Ibid. May 18-28, 1688. : 

gr gn 6-16, 1688; Treasury Letter Book, March 14, 1687-8; Ronquillo, 
April 16-26. 

PVan Citters, May 18-28, 1688, | Ibid. May 18-28, 1688, 


658 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


would have been at once shut up by hundreds. What effect such an 
interference with the comfort of all ranks would have produced must 
be left to conjecture. The resentment excited by grievances is not 
always proportioned to their dignity; and itis byno means improbable 
that the resumption of licenses might have done what the resumption 
of charters had failed to do. Men of fashion would have missed the 
chocolate house in Saint James’s Street, and men of business the 
coffee pot, round which they were accustomed to smoke and talk 
politics, in Change Alley. Half the clubs would have been wander- 
ing in search of shelter. The traveller at nightfall would have found 
the inn where he had expected to sup and lodge deserted. The 
clown would have regretted the hedge alehouse, where he. had been 
accustomed to take his pot on the bench before the door in summer, 
and at the chimney corner in winter. The nation might, perhaps, on 
such provocation, have risen in general rebellion without waiting for 
the help of foreign allies, : 

It was not to be expected that a prince who required all the hum- 
blest servants of the government to support his policy on pain of dis- 
mission would continue to employ an Attorney General whose aver- 
sion to that policy was no secret. Sawyer had.been suffered to retain 
his situation more than a year and a half after he had declared against 
the dispensing power. This extraordinary indulgence he owed to the 
extreme difficulty which the government found in supplying his 
place. It was necessary for the protection of the pecuniary interests 
of the crown, that at least one of the two chief law officers should be 
a man of ability and knowledge; and it was by no means easy to in- 
duce any barrister of ability and knowledge to put himself in peril 
by committing every day acts which the next Parliament would prob- 
ably treat as high crimes and misdemeanours. It had been impossible 
to procure a better Solicitor General than Powis, a man who indeed 
stuck at nothing, but who was incompetent to perform the ordinary 
duties of his post. In these circumstances it was thought desirable 
that there should be a- division of labour. An Attorney, the value 
of whose professional talents was much diminished by his conscien- 
tious scruples, was coupled with a Solicitor whose want of scruples 
made some amends for his want of talents. When the government 
wished to enforce the law, recourse was had to Sawyer. When the 
government wished to brcak the law, recourse was had to Powis. 
This arrangement lasted till the King was able to obtain the services 
of an advocate at once baser than Powis and abler than Sawyer. 

No barrister living had opposed the Court with more virulence than 
William Williams. He had distinguished himself in the late reign as 
a Whig and an Exclusionist. When faction was at the height, he 
had been chosen Speaker of the House of Commons. After the pro- 
rogation of the Oxford Parliament he had commonly been counsel 
for the most noisy demagogues who had been accused of sedition. 
He was allowed to possess both parts and learning. His chief faults | 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 659 


were supposed to be rashness and party spirit. It was not yet sus- 
pected that he had faults compared with which rashness and party 
spirit might well pass for virtues. The government sought occasion 
against him, and easily found it. He had published, by order of the 
House of Commons, a narrative which Dangerfield had written. 
This narrative, if published by a private man, would undoubtedly 
have been a seditious libel. A criminal information was filed in the 
King’s Bench against Williams : he pleaded the privileges of Parlia- 
ment in vain : he was convicted and sentenced to a fine of ten thou- 
sand pounds. A large part of this sum he actually paid : for the rest 
he gave a bond. The Earl of Peterborough, who had been injuri- 
ously mentioned in Dangerfield’s narrative, was encouraged, by the 
success of the criminal information, to bring a civil action, and to 
demand large damages. Williams was driven to extremity. At this 
juncture a way of escape presented itself. It was indeed a way 
which, to a man of strong principles or high spirit, would have been 
more dreadful than beggary, imprisonment, or death. He might sell 
himself to the government of which he had been the enemy and the 
victim. He might offer to go on the forlorn hope in every assault on 
those liberties and on that religion for which he had professed an in- 
ordinate zeal. He might expiate his Whiggism by performing ser- 
vices from which bigoted Tories, stained with the blood of Russell 
and Sidney, shrank in horror. The bargain was struck. The debt 
still due to the crown was remitted. Peterborough was induced, by 
royal mediation, to compromise his action. Sawyer was dismissed. 
Powis became Attorney General. Williams was made Solicitor, re- 
ceived the honour of knighthood, and was soon a favourite. Though 
in rank he was only the second law officer of the crown, his abili- 
ties, knowledge, and energy were such that he completely threw his 
superior into the shade.* 

Williams had not been long in office when he was required to bear 
a chief part in the most memorable state trial recorded in the British 
annals. 

On the twenty-seventh of April 1688, the King put forth a second 
Declaration of Indulgence. In this paper he recited at length the 
Declaration of the preceding April. His past life, he said, ought to 
have convinced his people that he was not a person who could easily 
be induced to depart from any resolution which he had formed. But, 
as designing men had attempted to persuade the world that he might 
be prevailed on to give way in this matter, he thought it necessary to 
proclaim that his purpose was immutably fixed, that he was resolved 


* London Gazette, December 15, 1687. See the proceedings against Williams 
in the Collection of State Trials. ‘‘Ha hecho,” says Ronquillo, ‘‘ grande susto 
elhaber nombrado el abogado Williams, que fue el orador y el mas arrabiado de 
toda la casa des comunes en los ultimos terribles parlamentos del Rey difunto,” 


Nov. 27, 
Dec. 7, 1687. 


660 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


to employ those only who were prepared to concur in his design, and 
that he had, in pursuance of that resolution, dismissed many of his 
disobedient servants from civil and military employments. He an- 
nounced that he meant to hold a Parliament in November at the 
latest; and he exhorted his subjects to choose representatives who 
would assist him in the great work which he had undertaken.* 

This Declaration at first produced little sensation. It contained 
nothing new; and men wondered that the King-should think it worth 
while to publish a solemn manifesto merely for the purpose of telling 
tham that he had not changed his mind.+ Perhaps James was nettled 
by the indifference with which the announcement of his fixed resolu- 
tion was received by the public, and thought that his dignity and 
authority would suffer unless he without delay did something novel 


and striking. On the fourth of May, accordingly, he made an Order ~- 


in Council that his Declaration of the preceding week should be 


read, on two successive Sundays, at the time of divine service, by | 


the officiating ministers of all the churches and chapels of the king- 
dom. In London and in the suburbs the reading was to take place 
on the twentieth and twenty-seventh of May, in other parts of Eng- 
land on the third and tenth of June. The Bishops were directed to 
distribute copies of the: Declaration through their respective dio- 
ceses. t 

When it is considered that the clergy of the Established Church, 
with scarcely an exception, regarded the Indulgence as a violation of 
the laws of the realm, as a breach of the plighted faith of the King, 
and as a fatal blow levelled at the interest and dignity of their own 
profession, it will scarcely admit of doubt that the Order in Council 
was intended to be felt by them as a cruel affront. It was popularly 
believed that Petre had avowed this intention in a coarse metapher 
borrowed from the rhetoric of. the East. He would, he said, make 
them eat dirt, the vilest and most loathsome of all dirt. But, tyran- 
nical and malignant as the mandate was, would the Anglican priest- 
hood refuse to obey? The King’s temper was aibitrary and severe. 
The proceedings of the Ecclesiastical Commission were as summary 
as those of a court martial. Whoever ventured to resist might in a 
week be ejected from his parsonage, deprived of his whole income, 
pronounced incapable of holding any other spiritual preferment, and 
left to beg from door to door. If, indeed, the whole body offered an 
united opposition to the royal will, it was probable that even James 
would scarcely venture to punish ten thousand delinquents at once. 
But there was not time to form an extensive combination. ‘The 
Order in Council was gazetted on the seventh of May. On the 
twentieth the Declaration was to be read in all the pulpits of London 


* London Gazette, April 30, 1688; Barillon, — a 


+Van Citters, May 1-11, 1688. + London Gazette, May 7, 1688. 


“4 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 661 


and the neighbourhood. By no exertion was it possible in that age 
_to ascertain within a fortnight the intentions of one tenth part of 
the parochial ministers who were scattered over the kingdom. It 
was not easy to collect in so short a time the sense even of the episco- 
pal order. Itmight also well be apprehended that, if the clergy refused 
to read the Declaration, the Protestant Dissenters would misinter pret 
the refusal, would despair of obtaining any toleration from the mem- 
bers of the Church of England, and would throw their whole weight 
in the scale of the Court. 

The clergy therefore hesitated; and this hesitation may well be 
excused; for some eminent laymen, who possessed a large share of 
the public confidence, were disposed to recommend submission. 
They thought that a general opposition could hardly be expected, and 
that a partial opposition would be ruinous to individuals, and of 
little advantage to the Church and to the nation. Such was the 
opinion given at this time by Halifax and Nottingham. The 
day drew near; and still there was no concert and no formed resolu- 
tion. 

At this conjuncture the Protestant Dissenters of London won for 
themselves a title to the lasting gratitude of their country. They 
had hitherto been reckoned by the government as part of its strength. 
A few of their most active and noisy preachers, corrupted by the 
favours of the Court, had got up addresses in favour of the King’s 
policy. Others, estranged by the recollection of many cruel wrongs 
both from the Church of England and from the House of Stuart, had 
seen with resentful pleasure the tyrannical prince and the tyrannical 
hierarchy separated by a bitter enmity, and bidding against each 
other for the help of sects lately persecuted and despised. But this 
feeling, however natural, had been indulged long enough. The time 
had come when it was necessary to make a choice: and the Nonconfor- 
mists of the City, with a noble spirit, arrayed themselves side by side 
with the members of the Church in defence of the fundamental laws 
of the realm. Baxter, Bates, and Howe distinguished themselves by 
their efforts to bring about this coalition: but the generous enthusi- 
asm which pervaded the whole Puritan body made the task easy. 
The zeal of the flocks outran that of the pastors. Those Presby- 
terian and Independent teachers who showed an inclination to take 
part with the King against the ecclesiastical establishment receive¢ 
distinct notice that, unless they changed their conduct, their congre 
gations would neither hear them nor pay them. Alsop, who had 
flattered himself that he should be able to bring over a great body of 
his disciples to the royal side, found himself on a sudden an object of 
contempt and abhorrence to those who had lately revered him as their 
spiritual guide, sank into a deep melancholy, and hid himself from 
the public eye. Deputations waited on several of the London clergy 


—— 


* Johnstone, May 27, 1688. 


662 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


imploring them not to judge of the dissenting body from the servile 
adulation which had lately filled the London Gazette, and exhorting 
them, placed as they were in the van of this great fight, to play the 
men for the liberties of England and for the faith delivered to the 
Saints. These assurances were received with joy and gratitude. 
Yet there was still much anxiety and much difference of opinion 
among those who had to decide whether, on Sunday the twentieth, 
they would or would not obey the King’s command. The London 
elergy, then universally acknowledged to be the flower of their pro- 
fession, held a meeting. Fifteen Doctors of Divinity were present. 
Tillotson, Dean of Canterbury, the most celebrated preacher of the 
age, came thither from a sick bed. Sherlock, Master of the Temple, 
Patrick, Dean of Peterborough and Rector of Saint Paul’s, Covent 
Garden, and Stillingfleet, Archdeacon of London and Dean of Saint 
Paul’s Cathedral, attended. The general feeling of the assembly 
seemed to be that it was, on the whole, advisable to obey the Order 
in Council. The dispute began to wax warm, and might have pro- 
duced fatal consequences, if it had not been brought to a close by the 
firmness and wisdom of Doctor Edward Fowler, Vicar of Saint 
Giles’s, Cripplegate, one of a small but remarkable class of divines 
who united that love of civil liberty which belonged to the school of 
Calvin with the theology of the school of Arminius.* Standing up, 
Fowler spoke thus: ‘‘l must be plain. The question is so simple 
that argument can throw no new light on it, and can only beget heat. 
Let every man say Yes or No. But I cannot consent to be bound 
by the vote of the majority. I shall be sorry to cause a breach of 
unity. But this Declaration I cannot in conscience read.” ‘Tillot- 
son, Patrick, Sherlock, and Stillingfleet declared that they were of 
the same mind. The majority yielded to the authority of a minority 
so respectable. A resolution by which all present pledged them- 
selves to one another not to read the Declaration was then drawn up. 
Patrick was the first who set his hand to it; Fowler was the second. 
The paper was sent round the City, and was speedily subscribed by 
eighty-five incumbents.+ 

Meanwhile several of the Bishops were anxiously deliberating as 
to the course which they should take. On the twelfth of May a 
grave and learned company was assembled round the table of the 
Primate at Lambeth. Compton, Bishop of London, Turner, Bishop 
of Ely, White, Bishop of Peterborough, and Tenison, Rector of Saint 
Martin’s Parish, were among the guests. The Earl of Clarendon, a 


*That very remarkable man, the late Alexander Knox, whose eloquent con- 
versation and elaborate letters had a great influence on the minds of his contem- 
poraries, learned, I suspect, much of his theological system from Fowler’s writ- 
ings. Fowler’s book on the Design of Christianity was assailed by John Bunyan 
with a ferocity which nothing can justify, but which the birth and breeding of 
the honest Tinker in some degree excuse. 

_+ Johnstone, May 23, 1688, There is a satirical poem on this meeting entitled 
the Clerical Cabal, 


4 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 663 


zealous and uncompromising friend of the Church, had been invited. 
Cartwright, Bishep of Chester, intruded himself on the meeting, 
probably asa spy. While he remained no confidential communica- 
tion could take place: but, after his departure, the great question of 
which all minds were full was propounded and discussed. The 
general opinion was that the Declaration ought not to be read. Let- 
ters were forthwith written to several of the most respectable prelates 
of the province of Canterbury, entreating them to come up without 
delay to London, and to strengthen the hands of their metropolitan 
at this conjuncture.* As there was little doubt that these letters 
would be.opened if they passed through the office in Lombard Street, 
they were sent by horsemen to the nearest country post towns on the 
different roads. The Bishop of Winchester, whose loyalty had been 
so signally proved at Sedgemoor, though suffering from indisposi- 
tion, resolved to set out in obedience to the summons, but found 
himself unable to bear the motion of a coach. The letter addressed 
to William Lloyd, Bishop of Norwich, was, in spite of all precau- 
tions, detained by a postmaster; and that prelate, inferior to none of 
his brethren in courage and in zeal for the common cause of his 
order, did not reach London in. time.+ His namesake, William 
Lloyd, Bishop of Saint Asaph, a pious, honest, and learned man, 
but of slender judgment, and half crazed by his persevering endeav- 
ours to extract from the Book of Daniel and from the Revelations 
some information about the Pope and the King of France, hastened 
to the capital and arrived on the sixteenth.t On the following day 
came the excellent Ken, Bishop of Bath and Wells, Lake, Bishop of 
Chichester, and Sir John Trelawney, Bishop of Bristol, a baronet of » 
an old and honourable Cornish family. 

On the eighteenth a meeting of prelates and of other eminent di- 
vines was held at Lambeth. ‘Tillotson, Tenison, Stillingfleet, Patrick, 
and Sherlock were present. Prayers were solemnly read before the 
consultation began. After long deliberation, a petition embodying 
the general sense was written by the Archbishop with his own hand. 
It was not drawn up with much felicity of style. Indeed, the cum- 
brous and inelegant structure of the sentences brought on Sancroft 
some raillery, which he bore with less patience than he showed under 
much heavier trials. But in substance nothing could be more skil- 
fully framed than this memorable document. Al] disloyalty, all intol- 
erance, was earnestly disclaimed. The King was assured that the 
Church still was, as she had ever been, faithful to the throne. He 
was assured also that the Bishops would, in proper place and time, 
as Lords of Parliament and members of the Upper House of Convo- 
cation, show that they by no means wanted tenderness for the con- 


* Clarendon’s Diary, May 22, 1688. 

+Extracts from Tanner MSS. in Howell’s State Trials; Life of Prideaux; 
Clarendon’s Diary, May 16 and 17, 1688. 

¢Clarendon’s Diary, May 16 and 17, 1688. 


664 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


scientious scruples of Dissenters. But Parliament had, both in the 
late and the present reign, pronounced that the sovereign was not 
constitutionally competent to dispense with statutes in matters eccle- 
siastical. The Declaration was therefore illegal; and the petition- 
ers could not, in prudence, honour, or conscience, be parties to the 
solemn publishing of an illegal Declaration in the house of God, and 
during the time of divine service. 

This paper was signed by the Archbishop and by six of his suf- 
fragans, Lloyd of Saint Asaph, Turner of Ely, Lake of Chichester, 
Ken of Bath and Wells, White of Peterborough and Trelawney 
of Bristol. The Bishop of London, being under suspension, did not 
sign. 
It was now late on Friday evening; and on Sunday morning the 
Declaration was to be read in the churches of London. It was neces- — 
sary to put the paper into the King’s hands without delay. The six 
Bishops crossed the river to Whitehall. The Archbishop, who had 
long been forbidden the Court, did not accompany them. Lloyd, 
leaving his five brethren at the house of Lord Dartmouth in the vi- 
cinity of the palace, went to Sunderland, and begged that minister to 
read the petition, and to ascertain when the King would be willing to 
receive it. Sunderland, afraid of compromising himself, refused to 
look at the paper, but went immediately to the royal closet. James 
directed that the Bishops should be admitted. He had heard from 
his tool Cartwright that they were disposed to obey the royal mandate, 
but that they wished for some little modifications in form, and that 
they meant to present a humble request to that effect. His Majesty 
- was therefore in very good humour. When they knelt before him, he 
graciously told them to rise, took the paper from Lloyd, and said, 
‘This is my Lord of Canterbury's hand.” ‘‘ Yes, sir, hisown hand,” 
was theanswer. James read the petition: he folded it up; and his 
countenance grew dark. ‘‘ This,” he said, ‘‘is a great surprise to 
me. I did not expect this from your Church, especially from some 
of you. This isa standard of rebellion.” The Bishops broke out 
into passionate professions of loyalty: but the King, as usual, re- 
peated the same words over and over. ‘‘I tell you, this is a stand- 
ard of rebellion.” ‘‘ Rebellion!” cried Trelawney, falling on his 
knees. ‘‘ For God’s sake, sir, do not say so hard a thing of us. No 
Trelawney can be a rebel. Remember that. my family has fought 
for the crown. Remember how I served Your Majesty when Mon- 
mouth was in the West.” ‘‘ We put down the last rebellion,” said 
Lake: ‘‘ we shall not raise another.” ‘‘ We rebel!” excluimed Turner; 
‘‘we are ready to die at your Majesty’s feet.” ‘‘ Sir,” sail Ken, in 
a more manly tone, ‘‘I hope that you will grant to us that liberty of 
conscience which you grant to all mankind.” Still James went on. 
‘“This isrebellion. This is a standard of rebellion. Did evera good 
Churchman question the dispensing power before? Have not some 
of you preached for it and written for it?: It is a standard of rebel 


HISTURY OF ENGuAND. 665 


lion. I will have my Declaration published.’ ‘* Wehave two duties 
to perform,” answered Ken, ‘‘our duty to God, and our duty to your 
Majesty. We honour you: but we fear God.” ‘Have I deserved 
this?” said the King, more and more angry: ‘‘ I who have been sucha 
friend to your Church? I did not expect this from some of you. 
will be obeyed. My Declaration shall be published. You are trum- 
peters of sedition. What do you do here? Go to your dioceses; and 
see that Iam obeyed. I will keep this paper. I will not part with 
it. I will remember you that have signed it.” ‘ God’s will be done,” 
said Ken. ‘‘ God has given me the dispensing power,” said the King, 
‘‘and I will maintain it. I tell you that there are still seven thou- 
sand of your Church who have not bowed the knee to Baal.” The 
Bishops respectfully retired.* That very evening the document 
which they had put into the hands of the King appeared word for 
word in print, was laid on the tables of all the coffeehouses, and was 
cried about the streets. Everywhere the people rose from their beds, 
and came up to stop the hawkers, It was said that the printer 
cleared a thousand pounds in afew hours by this penny broadside. 
This is probably an exaggeration; but it is ah exaggeration which 
proves that the sale was enormous. How the petition got abroad is 
stilla mystery. Sancroft declared that he had taken every precau- 
tion against publication, and that he knew of no copy except that 
which he had himself written, and which James had taken out of 
Lloyd’shand. The veracity of the Archbishop is beyond all suspi- 
cion. But itis by no means improbable that some of the divines who 
assisted in framing the petition may have remembered so short a 
composition accurately, and may have sent it to the press. The 
prevailing opinion, however, was that some person about the King 
had been indiscreet or treacherous.+ Scarcely less sensation was pro- 
duced by a short letter which was written with great power of argu- 
ment and language, printed secretly, and largely circulated on the © 
same day by the post and by the common carriers. ‘A copy was sent 
to every clergyman in the kingdom. ‘The writer did not attempt to 
disguise the danger which those who disobeyed the royal mandate 
would incur: but he set forth in a lively manner the still greater 
danger of submission. ‘‘If we read the Declaration,” said he, ‘* we 
fallto rise no more. We fall unpitied and despised. We fall amidst 
the curses of a nation whom our compliance will have ruined.”’ Some 
thought that this paper came from Holland. Others attributed it to 
‘Sherlock. But Prideaux, Dean of Norwich, who was a principal 
agent in distributing it, believed it to be the work of Halifax. 
. The conduct of the prelates was rapturously extolled by the general 
voice: but some murmurs were heard. It was said that such grave 


May 2 
June L 


*Sancroft’s Narrative, printed from the Tanner MSS.; Van Citters, 


1688. 
+ Burnet, i. 741; Revolution Politics; Higgins’s Short View. 


666 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


men, if they thought themselves bound in conscience to remonstrate 
with the King, ought to have remonstrated earlier. Was it fair to 
leave him in the dark till within thirty-six hours of the time fixed for 
the reading of the Declaration? Even if he wished to revoke the 
Order in Council, it was too late to do so. The inference seemed to 
be that the petition was intended, notto move the royal mind, but 
merely to inflame the discontents of the people.* These complaints 
were utterly groundless. The King had laid on the Bishops a com- 
mand new, surprising, and embarrassing. It was their duty to com- 
municate with each other, and to ascertain as far as possible the 
sense of the profession of which they were the heads before they took 
any step. They were dispersed over the whole kingdom, Some of 
them were distant from others a full week’s journey. James allowed 
them only a fortnight to inform themselves, to meet, to deliberate, 
and to decide; and he surely had no right to think himself aggrieved 
because that fortnight was drawing toa close before he learned their 
decision. Nor is it true that they did not leave him time to revoke 
his order if he had been wise enough todo so. He might have called 
together his Council on Saturday morning, and before night it might 
have been known throughout London and the suburbs that he had 
yielded to the entreaties of the fathers of the Church. ‘The Saturday, 
however, passed over without any sign of relenting on the part of the 
government; and the Sunday arrived, a day long remembered. 

In the City and Liberties of London were about a hundred parish 


_ churches. In only four of these was the Order in Council obeyed. 


At Saint Gregory’s the Declaration was read by a divine of the name 
of Martin. As soonas he uttered the first words, the whole congre- 
gation rose and withdrew. At Saint Matthew’s, in Friday Street, a 
wretch named Timothy Hall, who had disgraced his gown by acting 
as broker for the Duchess of Portsmouth in the sale of pardons, and 
who now had hopes of obtaining the vacant bishopric of Oxford, was 
in like manner left alone in his church. At Serjeant’s Inn, in Chan- 
cery Lane, the clerk pretended that he had forgotten to bring a copy; 
and the Chief Justice of the King’s Bench, who had attended in order 
to see that the royal mandate was obeyed, was forced to content him- 
self with this excuse. Samuel Wesley, the father of John and Charles 
Wesley, a curate in London, took for his text that day the noble an- 


swer of the three Jews to the Chaldean tyrant, ‘‘Be it known unto ~ 


thee, O King, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden 
image which thou hast set up.” Even in the chapel of Saint James’s 
Palace the officiating minister had the courage to disobey the order. 
The Westminster boys long remembered what took place that day in 


the Abbey. Sprat, Bishop of Rochester, officiated there as Dean. As 


soon as he began to read the Declaration, murmurs and the noise of 
people crowding out of the choir drowned his voice. He trembled so 


_—+—— 


* Life of James the Second, ii, 155. 


sn ae al 


™~ 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 667 


violently that men saw the paper shake in his hand. Long before he 
had finished, the place was deserted by all but those whose situation 
made it necessary for them to remain.* 

Never had the Church been so dear to the nation as on the after- 
noon of that day. The Spirit of dissent seemed to be extinct. Bax- 
ter from his pulpit pronounced an eulogium on the Bishops and paro- 
chial clergy. The Dutch minister, a few hours later, wrote to inform 
the States General that the Anglican priesthood had risen in the esti 
mation of the public to an incredible degree. ‘The universal cry o 
the Nonconformists, he said, was that they would rather continue to 
lie under the penal statutes than separate their cause from that of the 
prelates. + 

Another week of anxiety and agitation passed’away. Sunday came 
again. Again the churches of the capital were thronged by hundreds 
of thousands. The Declaration was read nowhere except at the very 
few places where it had been read the week before. The min- 
ister who had officiated at the chapel in Saint James’s Palace had been 
turned out of his situation: a more obsequious divine appeared with 
the paper in his hand: but his agitation was so great that he could 
not articulate. In truth the feeling of the whole nation had now be- 
come such as none but the very best and noblest, or the very worst 
and basest, of mankind could without much discomposure encounter. t 

Even the King stood aghast for a moment at the violence of the 
tempest which he had raised. What step was he next to take? He 
must either advance or recede: and it was impossible to advance with+ 
out peril, or to recede without humiliation. At one moment he de- 
termined to put forth a second order enjoining. the clergy in high and 
angry terms to publish his Declaration, and menacing every one who 
should be refractory with instant suspension. ‘This order was drawn 
up and sent to the press, then recalled, thena second time sent to the 
press, then recalled a second time.§ A different plan was suggested 
by some of those who were for rigorous measures. ‘The prelates who 
had signed the petition might be cited before the Ecclesiastical Com- 
mission and deprived of their sees. But to this course strong objec- 
tions were urged in Council. It had been announced that the Houses 
would be convoked before the end of the year. The Lords would as- 
suredly treat the sentence of deprivation as a nullity, would insist 
that Sancroft and his fellow petitioners should be summoned to Par- 
liament, and would refuse to acknowledge a new Archbishop of 


May 22, : 
* Van Citters, : st ; 1688; Burnet, i. 740; and Lord Dartmouth’s note ; 
June 1, 
Southey’s Life of Wesley. 
May 22, ; May 29, 
+ Van Citters, 1688. + Ibid. 1688. 
June 8, June 8, 
F May 29, 
§ Van Citters, 


June 8, 


668 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


Canterbury or a new Bishop of Bath and Wells. Thus the session, 
which at best was likely to be sufficiently stormy, would commence 
with a deadly quarrel between the crgwn and the peers. If therefore 
it were thought necessary to punish the Bishops, the punishment 
ought to be inflicted according to the known course of English law. 
Sunderland had from the beginning objected, as far as he dared, to 
the Order in Council. He now suggested a course which, though not 
free from inconveniences, was the most prudent and the most digni- 
fied that a series of errors had left open to the government. ‘The 
King might with grace and majesty announce to the world that he 
was deeply hurt by the undutiful conduct of the Church of England; 
but that he could not forget all the services rendered by that Church, 
in trying times, to his father, to his brother, and to himself; that, as 
a friend to the liberty of conscience, he was unwilling to deal sever rely 
with men whom conscience, ill informed indeed, and unreasonably 
scrupulous, might have pr evented from obeying his commands; and 
that he would therefore leave the offenders to that punishment which 
their own reflections would inflict whenever they should calmly com- 
pare their recent acts with the loyal doctrines of which they had so 
loudly boasted. Not only Powis and Bellasyse, who had always been 
for moderate counsels, but even Dover and Arundell, leaned towards 
this proposition. Jeffreys, on the other hand, maintained that the 
government would be disgraced if such transgressors as the seven 
Bishops were suffered to escape with a mere reprimand. He did not, 
however, wish them to be cited before the Ecclesiastical Commission, 
in which he sate as chief or rather as sole Judge. Forthe load of pub- 
lic hatred under which he already lay was too much even for his 
shameless forehead and obdurate heart; and he shrank from the re- 
sponsibility which he would have incurred by pronouncing an illegal 
sentence on the rulers of the Church and the favourites of the nation. 
He therefore-recommended a criminal information. It was accord- 
ingly resolved that the Archbishop and the six other petitioners should 
be brought before the Court of King’s Bench on a charge of seditious 
libel. That they would be convicted it was scarcely possible to doubt. 
The Judges and their officers were tools of the Court. Since the old 
charter of the City of London had been forfeited, scarcely one pris- 
oner whom the government was bent on bringing to punishment had 


been absolved by a jury. The refractory prelates would probahly be ~ 


condemned to ruinous fines and to long imprisonment, and would be 
glad to ransom themselves by serving, both in and out of Parliament, 
the designs of the Sovereign.* 

On the twenty-seventh of May it was notified to the Bishops that on 
the eighth of June they must appear before the King in Council. Why 


May 24, M: Si; May 25, May 39, 
* Barillon, —— i 1688 ; Van Citters, July 111; Adda, eee 
June 8, June June 4, Jane 2, 


June 1-11; Life of dames rie Second, ii. 158. 


— 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. . 669 


so long an interval was allowed we are not informed. Perhaps James 
- hoped that some of the offenders, terrified by his displeasure, might 
submit before the day fixed for the reading of the Declaration in their 
dioceses, and might, in order to make their peace with him, persuade 
their clergy to obey his order. If such was his hope it was signally 
disappointed. Sunday the third of June came; and all parts of Eng- 
land followed the example of the capital. Already the Bishops of 
Norwich, Gloucester, Salisbury, Winchester, and Exeter had signed 
copies of the petition in token of their approbation. The Bishop of 
Worcester had refused to distribute the Declaration among his clergy. 
The Bishop of Hereford had distributed it: but it was generally un- 
derstood that he was overwhelmed by remorse and shame for having 
done so. Not ong parish priest in fifty complied with the Order in 
Council. In the great diocese of Chester, including the county of 
_Lancaster, only three clergymen could be prevailed on by Cartwright 
to obey the King. ‘In the diocese of Norwich are many hundreds of 
parishes. In only four of these was the Declaration read. The. 
courtly Bishop of Rochester could not overcome the scruples of the 
minister of the ordinary of Chatham, who depended on the govern- 
ment for bread. There is still extant a pathetic letter which this 
honest priest sent to the Secretary of the Admiralty. ‘‘ I cannot,” he 
wrote, ‘‘regsonably expect Your Honour’s protection. God’s will be 
done. I mk&st choose suffering rather than sin.”* 

On the evening of the eighth of June the seven prelates, furnished 
by the ablest lawyers in England with full advice, repaired to the 
palace, and were called into the Council chamber. Their petition 
was lying on the table. The Chancellor took the paper up, showed 
it to the Archbishop, and said, ‘‘Is this the paper which your Grace 
wrote, and which the six Bishops present delivered to His Majesty?” 
Sancroft looked at the paper, turned to the King, and spoke thus: 
‘*«Sir, I stand here a culprit. I never was so before. Once I little 
thought that I ever should be so. Least of all could I think that I 
should be charged with any offence against my King: but, since I 
am so unhappy as to be in this situation, Your Majesty will not be 
offended if I avail myself of my lawful right to decline saying any- 
thing which may criminate me.” ‘‘This is mere chicanery,” said 
the Kinig. ‘‘I hope that your Grace will not do so ill a thing as to 
deny your own hand.” ‘‘Sir,” said Lloyd, whose studies had been 
much among the casuists, ‘‘ all divines agree that a person situated 
as we are may refuse to answer such a question.” The King, as 
slow of understanding as quick of temper, could not comprehend 
what the prelates meant. He persisted, and was evidently becoming 
very angry. ‘‘Sir,” said the Archbishop, ‘‘I.am not bound to ac- 
cuse myself. Nevertheless, if Your Majesty positively com- 


* Burnet, i. 740; Life of Prideaux; Van Citters, June 12-22, 1688; Tanner 
MSS.; Life and Correspondence of Pepys. 
M. E. i.—22 


* 


670 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


mands me to answer, I will do so in the confidence that a just 
and generous prince will not suffer what I say in obedience to his 
orders to be brought in evidence against me.” You must not capitu- 
late with your Sovereign,” said the Chancellor. ‘‘ No,” said the 
King; ‘‘I will not give any such command. If you choose to deny 
your own hands, I have nothing more to say to you.” 

The Bishops were repeatedly sent out into the antechamber, and 
repeatedly called back into the Council room. At length James 
positively commanded them to answer the question. He did not ex- 
pressly engage that their confession should not be used against them. 
But they, not unnaturally, supposed that, after what had passed, 
such an engagement was implied in his command. Sancroft ac- 
knowledged his handwriting; and his brethren faglowed his example. 
They were then interrogated about the meaning of some words in 
the petition, and about the letter which had been circulated with so 
much effect all over the kingdom: but their language was so guarded 
that nothing was gained by the examination. The Chancellor then 
told them that a criminal information would be exhibited against 
them in the Court of King’s Bench, and called upon them to enter 
into recognisances. They refused. They were peers of Parliament, 
they said. They were advised by the best lawyers in Westminster 
Hall that no peer could be required to enter into a recognisance in a 
case of libel; and they should not think themselves justified in relin- 
quishing the privilege of their order. The King was so absurd as to 
think himself personally affronted because they chose, on a legal 
question, to be guided by legal advice. ‘‘ You believe every body,” 
he said, ‘‘rather than me.” He was indeed mortified and alarmed. 
For he had gone so far that, if they persisted, he had no choice left 
but to send them to prison; and, though he by no means foresaw all 
the consequences of such a step, he foresaw probably enough to dis- 
turb him. They were resolute. A warrant was therefore made out 
directing the Lieutenant of the Tower to keep them in safe custody, 
and a barge was manned to convey them down the river.* 

It was known all over London that the Bishops were before the 
Council. The public anxiety was intense. A great multitude filled 
the courts of Whitehall and all the neighbouring streets. Many peo- 
ple were in the habit of refreshing themselves at the close of a sum- 


mer day with the cool air of the Thames. But on this evening the~ 


whole river was alive with wherries. When the Seven came forth 
under a guard, the emotions of the people broke through all restraint. 
Thousands fell on their knees and prayed aloud for the men who 
had, with the Christian courage of Ridley and Latimer, confronted a 
tyrant inflamed by all the bigotry of Mary. Many dashed into the 
stream, and, up to the waists in ooze and water, cried to the holy 
fathers to bless them. All down the river, from Whitehall to Lon- 


* Sancroft’s Narrative, printed from the Tanner MSS. 


ins 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 671 


don Bridge, the royal barge passed between lines of boats, from 
which arose a shout of ‘‘ God bless Your Lordships.” The King, in 
great alarm, gave orders that the garrison of the Tower should be 
doubled, that the Guards should be held ready for action, and that 
two companies should be detached from every regiment in the king- 
dom, and sent up instantly to London. But thé force on which he 
relied as the means of coercing the people shared all the feelings of 
the people. The very sentinels who were posted at the Traitors’ 
Gate reverently asked for a blessing from the martyrs whom they 
were to guard. Sir Edward Hales was Lieutenant of the Tower. 
He was little inclined to treat his prisoners with kindness. For he 
was an apostate from that church for which they suffered; and he 
held several lucrative posts by virtue of that dispensing power 
against which they had protested. He learned with indignation that 
his soldiers were drinking the health of the Bishops. He ordered 
his officers to see that it was done no more. But the officers came 
back with a report that the thing could not be prevented, and that 
no other health was drunk in the garrison. Nor wasit only by carous- 
ing that the troops showed their reverence for the fathers of the 
Church. There was such a show of devotion throughout the Tower 
that pious men thanked God for bringing good out of evil, and for 
making the persecution of His faithful servants the means of saving 
many souls. All day the coaches and liveries of the first nobles of 
England were seen round the prison gates. Thousands of hum- 
bler spectators constantly covered Tower Hill.* But among the 
marks of public respect and sympathy which the prelates received 
there was one which more than all the rest enraged and alarmed the 
King. He learned that a deputation of ten Nonconformist ministers 
had visited the Tower. He sent for four of these persons, and him- 
self upbraidedthem. They courageously answered that they thought 
it their duty to forget past quarrels, and to stand by the men who 
stood by the Protestant religion.+ 

Scarcely had the gates of the Tower been closed on the prisoners 
when an event took place which increased the public excitement. It 
had been announced that the Queen did not expect to be confined till 
July. But, on the day after the Bishops had appeared before the 
Council, it was observed that the King seemed to be anxious about 
her state. In the evening, however, she sate playing cards at White- 
hall till near midnight. Then she was carried in a sedan to Saint 
James’s Palace, where apartments had been very hastily fitted up 
for her reception. Soon messengers were running about in all di- 
rections to summon physicians and priests, Lords of the Council, 
and Ladies of the Bedchamber. In a few hours many public 


* Burnet, i. 741; Van Citters, June 8-18, 12-22, 1688; Luttrell’s Diary. June 8; 
Evelyn’s Diary; Letter of Dr. Nalson to his wife, dated June 14, and printed 
from the Tanner MSS.; Reresby’s Memoirs. 

+ Reresby’s Memoirs. 


672 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


functionaries and women of rank were assembled in the Queen’s 
room. There, on tre morning of Sunday, the tenth of June, a 
day long kept sacred by the too faithful adherents of a bad cause, 
was born the most unfortunate of princes, destined to seventy- 
seven years of exile and wandering, of vain projects, of honours 
more galling than insults, and of hopes such as make the heart 
sick. 

The calamities of the poor child had begun before his birth. 
The nation over which, according to the ordinary course of 
succession, he would have reigned, was fully persuaded that his 
mother was not really pregnant. By whatever evidence the 
fact of his birth had been proved, a considerable number of 
people would probably have persisted in maintaining that the 
Jesuits had practised some skilful sleight of hand; and the evi- 
dence, partly from accident, partly from gross mismanagement, was 
really open to some objections. Many persons of both sexes were 
in the royal bedchamber when the child first saw the light; but none 
of them enjoyed any large measure of public confidence. Of the 
Privy Councillors present, half were Roman Catholics; and those 
who called themselves Protestants were generally regarded as traitors 
to their country and their God. Many of the women in attendance 
were French, Italian, and Portuguese. Of the English ladies some 
were Papists, and some were the wives of Papists. Some persons 
who were peculiarly entitled to be present, and whose testimony 
would have satisfied all minds accessible to reason, were absent; and . 
for their absence the King was held responsible. The Princess Anne 
was, of all the inhabitants of the island, the most deeply interested 
in the event. Her sex and her experience qualified her to act as the 
guardian of her sister’s birthright and her own. She had conceived 
strong suspicions, which were daily confirmed by cireumstances 
trifling or imaginary. She fancied that the Queen carefully shunned 
her scrutiny, and ascribed to guilt a reserve which was perhaps the 
effect of delicacy.* In this temper Anne had determined to be pre- 
sent and vigilant when the critical day should arrive. But she had 
not thought it necessary to be at her ‘post a month before that day, 
and had, in compliance, it was said, with her father’s advice, gone to 
drink the Bath waters. Sancroft, whose great place made it his duty 
to attend, and on whose probity the nation placed entire reliance, 
had a few hours before been sent to the Tower by James. The 
Hydes were the proper protectors of the rights of the two Princesses. 
The Dutch Ambassador might be regarded as t:.e representative of 
William, who, as first prince of the blood and consort of the King’s © 
eldest daughter, had a deep interest in what was passing. James 4 
never thought of summoning any member, male or female, of the 


* Correspondence between Anneand Mary, in Dalrymple; Clarendon’s siicoge 
October 31, 1688.. 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 673 


family of Hyde; nor was the Dutch Ambassador invited to be 
present. , 

Posterity has fully acquitted the King of the fraud which his peo- 
ple imputed to him. But it is impossible to acquit him of folly and 
perverseness such as explain and excuse the error of his contem- 
poraries.. He was perfectly aware of the suspicions which were 
abroad.* He ought to have known that those suspicions 
would not be dispelled by the evidence of members of the Church of 
Rome, or of persons who, though they might call themselves members 
of the Church of England, had shown themselves ready to sacrifice 
the interests of the Church of England in order to obtain his favour. 
That he was taken by surprise is true. But he had twelve hours to 
make his arrangements. He found no difficulty in crowding St. 
James’s Palace with bigots and sycophants on whose word the nation 
placed no reliance. It would have been quite as easy to procure the 
attendance of some eminent persons whose attachment to the Prin- 
cesses and to the established religion was unquestionable. 

At a later period, when he had paid dearly for his foolhardy con- 
tempt of public opinion, it was the fashion at Saint Germain’s to ex- 
cuse him by throwing the blame on others. Some Jacobites charged 
Anne with having purposely kept out of the way. Nay, they were 
not ashamed to say that Sancroft had provoked the King to send him 
to the Tower, in order that the evidence which was to confound the 
calumnies of the malecontents might be defective.| The absurdity of 
these imputations is palpable. Could Anne or Sancroft possibly have 
foreseen that the Queen’s calculations would turn out to be erroneous 
by a whole month? Had those calculations been correct, Anne would 
have been back from Bath, and Sancroft would have been out of the 
Tower, in ample time for the birth. At all events, the maternal 
uncles of the King’s daughters were neither at a distance nor in a 
prison. The same messenger who summoned the whole bevy of rene 
gades, Dover, Peterborough, Murray, Sunderland,and Mulgrave, could 
just as easily have summoned Clarendon. If they were Privy Coun- 
cillors, so was he. His house was in Jermyn Street, not two hundred 
yards from the chamber of the Queen. Yet he was left to learn at 
St. James’s Church, from the agitation and whispers of the congre- 
gation, that his niece had ceased to be heiress presumptive of the 
crown.t Was it a disqualification that he was a near kinsman of the 
Princesses of Orange and Denmark? Or was it a disqualification that 
he was unalterably attached to the Church of England? 

The cry of the whole nation was that an imposture had been prac- 
ticed. Papists had, during some months, been predicting from the 
pulpit and through the press, in prose and verse, in English and 


* This is clear from Clarendon’s Diary, Oct. 31, 1688 
+ Life of James the Second, ii. 159, 160. 
+ Clarendon’s Diary, June 10, 1688. 


674 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


Latin, that a Prince of Wales would be given to the prayers of the 
Church; and they had now accomplished their own prophecy. Every 
witness who could not be corrupted or deceived had been studiously 
excluded. Anne had been tricked into visiting Bath. The Primate 
had, on the very day preceding that which had been fixed for the 
villany, been sent to prison in defiance of the rulesof law and of the 
privileges of peerage. Not a single man or woman who had the 
smallest interest in detecting the fraud had been suffered to be pre- 
sent. The Queen had been removed suddenly and at the dead of 
night to St. James’s Palace, because that building, less commodious 
for honest purposes than Whitehall, had some rooms and passages 
well suited for the purpose of the Jesuits. There, amidst a circle of 
zealots who thought nothing a crime that tended to promote the in- 
terest of their Church, and of courtiers who thought nothing a crime 
that tended to enrich and aggrandise themselves, a new born child had 
been introduced, by means of a warming pan, into the royal bed, 
and then handed round in triumph, as heir of three kingdoms. 
Heated by such suspicions, suspicions unjust, it is true, but not alto- 
gether unnatural, men thronged more eagerly than ever to pay their 
homage to the saintly victims of the tyrant, who, having long foully 
injured his people, had now filled up the measures of his iniquities 
by more foully injuring his children.* 

The Prince of Orange, not himself suspecting any trick, and not 
aware of the state of public feeling in England, ordered prayers to 
be said under his own roof for his little brother in law, and sent 
Zulestein to London with a formal message of congratulation. 
Zulestein, to his amazement, found all the people whom he met 
open mouthed about the infamous fraud just committed by the 
Jesuits, and saw every hour some fresh pasquinade on the pregnancy 
and the delivery. He soon wrote to the Hague that not one person 
in ten believed the child to have been born of the Queen.t+ 

The demeanour of the seven prelates meanwhile strengthened the 
interest which their sitution excited. On the evening of the Black 
Friday, as it was called, on which they were committed, they reached 
their prison just at the hour of divine service. They instantly 
hastened to the chapel. It chanced that in the second lesson were these 
words: ‘‘In allthings approving ourselves as the ministers of God, 
in much patience, in afflictions, in distresses, in stripes, in imprison- 
ments.” <All zealous Churchmen were delighted by this coincidence, 


—a 


* Johnstone gives ina very few words an excellent summary of thé case against 
the King: ‘*The generality of people conclude all is a trick; because they sa 
the reckoning is changed, the Princess sent away, none of the Clarendon family 
nor the Dutch Ambassador sent for, the suddenness of the thing, the sermons, 
the confidence of the priests, the hurry.”’ June 138, 1688. 


July 26, . : ° 
+ Ronquillo, — Ronquillo adds, that what Zulestein said of the state of 
public opinion was strictly true. 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 675 


and remembered how much comfort a similar coincidence had 
mee near forty years before, to Charles the First at the time of his 
eath. 

On the evening of the next day, Saturday the ninth, a letter came 
from Sunderland enjoining the chaplain of the Tower to read the 
Declaration during divine service on the following morning. As the 
time fixed by the Order in Council for the reading in London had 
long expired, this proceeding of. the government could be considered 
only as a personal insult of the meanest and most childish kind to 
the venerable prisoners. The chaplain refused to comply; he was 
dismissed from his situation; and the chapel was shut up.* 

The Bishops edified all who approached them by the firmness and 
cheerfulness with which they endured confinement, by the modesty 
and meekness with which they received the applauses and blessings 
of the whole nation, and by the loyal attachment which they pro- 
fessed for the persecutor who sought their destruction. They re- 
mained only a week in custody. On Friday. the fifteenth of June, 
the first day of term, they were brought before the King’s Bench. 
An immense throng awaited their coming. From the landingplace 
to the Court of Requests they passed through a lane of spectators 
who blessed and applauded them. ‘‘ Friends,” said the prisoners as 
they passed, ‘‘ honour the King; and remember us in your prayers.” 
These humble and pious expressions moved the hearers even to tears. 
When at length the procession had made its way through the crowd 
into the presence of the Judges, the Attorney General exhibited the 
information which he had been commanded to prepare, and moved 
that the defendants might be ordered to plead. The counsel on the 
other side objected that the Bishops had been unlawfully committed, 
and were therefore not regularly before the Court. ‘The question 
whether a peer could be required to enter into recognisances on a 
charge of libel was argued at great length, and decided by a majority 
of the Judges in favour of the crown. The prisoners then pleaded 
Not Guilty. That day fortnight, the twenty-ninth of June, was fixed 
for their trial. In the meantime they were allowed to be at large on 
their own recognisances. The crown lawyers acted prudently in not 
requiring sureties. For Halifax had arranged that twenty-one tem- 
poral peers of the highest consideration should be ready to put in 
bail, three for each defendant; and such a manifestation of the feel- 
ing of the nobility would have been no slight blow to the govern- 
ment. It was also known that one of the most opulent Dissenters of 
te al had begged that he might have the honour of giving security 

or Ken. 

The Bishops were now permitted to depart to their own homes. 
The common people, who did not understand the nature of the legal 
proceedings which had taken place in the King’s Bench, and who 


* Van Citters, June 12-22, 1688; Luttrell’s Diary, June 18. 


eer HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


saw that their favourites had been brought to Westminster Hall in 
custody and were suffered to go away in freedom, imagined that the 
good cause was prospering. Loud acclamations were raised. ‘The 
steeples of the churches sent forth joyous peals. Sprat was amazed 
to hear the bells of his own Abbey ringing merrily. He promptly 
silenced them; but his interference caused much angry muttering. 


The Bishops found it difficult to escape from the importunate crowd - 


of their wellwishers. Lloyd was detained in Palace Yard by ad- 
mirers who struggled to touch his hands and to kiss the skirt of 
his robe, till Clarendon, with some difficulty, rescued him and con- 
veyed him home by a bypath. Cartwright, it is said, was so unwise 
as to mingle with the crowd. A person who saw his episcopal] habit 
asked and received his blessing. A bystander cried out, ‘‘Do you 
know who blessed you?” ‘‘Surely,” said -he who had been hon- 
oured by the benediction, ‘‘it was one of the Seven.” ‘‘ No,” said 
the other, ‘‘it is the Popish Bishop of Chester.” ‘‘ Popish dog,” 
cried the enraged Protestant: ‘‘take your blessing back again.” 

Such was the concourse, and such the agitation, that the Dutch 
Ambassador was surprised to see the day close without an insurrec- 
tion. The King had been anxious and irritable. In order that he 
might be ready to suppress any disturbance, he had passed the morn- 
ing in reviewing several battalions of infantry in Hyde Park. It is, 
however, by no means certain that his troops would have stood by 
him if he had needed their services. When Sancroft reached Lam- 
beth, in the afternoon, he found the footguards, who were quartered 
in that suburb, assembled before the gate of his palace. They 
formed in two lines on his right and left, and asked his benediction 
as he went through them. He with difficulty prevented them from 
lighting a bonfire in honour of his return to his dwelling. There 
were, however, many bonfires that evening in the City. Two Roman 
Catholics, who were so indiscreet as to beat some boys for joining in 
these rejoicings, were seized by the mob, stripped naked, and igno- 
miniously branded.* 

Sir Edward Hales now came to demand fees from those who had 
lately been his prisoners. They refused to pay anything for a deten- 
tion which they regarded as illegal to an officer whose commission 
was, on their principles, a nullity. The Lieutenant hinted very in- 
telligibly that, if they’came into his hands again, they should be put 
into heavy irons and should lie on bare stones. ‘‘ We are under our 
King’s displeasure,” was the answer; ‘‘and most deeply do we feel 
it: but a fellow subject who threatens us does but lose his breath.” 
It is easy to imagine with what indignation the people, excited as 
they were, must have learned that a renegade from the Protestant 
faith, who held a command in defiance of the fundamental laws of 


ty 


* For the events of this day see the State Trials; Clarendon’s Di ; Luttrell’s 
Diary; Van Citters, June 15-25; Johnstone, June 18; Revolution Politics. 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. = Ora 


England, had dared to menace divines of venerable age and dignity 
with all the barbarities of Lollard’s Tower.* 

Before the day of trial the agitation had spread to the farthest 
corners of the island. From Scotland the Bishops received letters 
assuring them of the sympathy of the Presbyterians of that country, 
so long and so bitterly hostile to prelacy.t The people of Cornwall, 
a fierce, bold, and athletic race, among whom there was a stronger 
provincial feeling than in any other part of the realm, were greatly 
moved by the danger of Trelawney, whom they reverenced less as a 
ruler of the Church than as the head of an honourable house, and the 
heir through twenty descents of ancestors who had been of great 
note before the Normans had set foot on English ground. All over 
the country the peasants chanted a ballad of which the burden isstill 
remembered: 


“ And shall Trelawney die, and shall Trelawney die ? 
Then thirty thousand Cornish boys will know the reason why.”’ 


The miners from their caverns reéchoed the song with a variation:: 
“ Then twenty thousand under ground will know the reason why.’’t 


The rustics in many parts of the country loudly expressed a 
strange hope which had never ceased to live in their hearts. ‘Their 
Protestant Duke, their beloved Monmouth, would suddenly appear, 
would lead them to victory, and would tread down the King and the 
Jesuits under his feet.§ 

The ministers were appalled. Even Jeffreys would gladly have 
retraced his steps. He charged Clarendon with friendly messages to 
the Bishops, and threw on others the blame of the prosecution which 
he had himself recommended. Sunderland again ventured to recom- 
mend concession. The late auspicious birth, he said, had given the 
King an excellent opportunity of withdrawing from a position full 
of danger and inconvenience without incurring the reproach of tim- 
idity or of caprice. On such happy occasions it had been usual for 
sovereigns to make the hearts of subjects glad by acts of clemency; 
and nothing could be more advantageous to the Prince of Wales 
than that he should, while still in his cradle, be the peacemaker be- 
tween his father and the agitated nation. But the King’s resolution 
was fixed. ‘‘I will go on, ’ he said. ‘*I have been too indulgent. 
Indulgence ruined my father.” | The artful minister found that his 
advice had been formerly taken only because it had been shaped to 
suit the royal temper, and that, from the moment at which he began 
‘to counsel well, he began to counsel in vain. He had shown some 


* Johnstone, June 18, 1688; Evelyn’s Diary, June 29. + Tanner MSS. 
¢ This fact was communicated to me in the most obliging manner by the Rey, 
R. S. Hawker, of Morwenstow, in Cornwall. dabken 
une 


§ Johnstone, June 18, 1688, j Adda, a . aa — 1688, 


Wy 


678 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


signs of slackness in the proceeding against Magdalene College. He 
had recently attempted to convince the King that Tyrconnel’s 
scheme of confiscating the property of the English colonists in Ire- 
land was full of danger, and had, with the help of Powis and Bel- 
lasyse, so far succeeded that the execution of the design had been 
postponed for another year. But this timidity and scrupulosity had 
excited disgust and suspicion in the royal mind.* The day of retri- 
bution had arrived. Sunderland was in the same situation in which 
his rival Rochester had been some months before. Each of the 
two statesmen in turn experienced the misery of clutching with 
an agonising grasp, power which was perceptibly slipping away. 
Each in turn saw his suggestions scornfully rejected. Both 
endured the pain of reading displeasure and distrust in the coun- 
tenance and demeanour of their master; yet both were by their 
country held responsible for those crimes and errors from which they 
had vainly endeavoured to dissuade him. While he suspected them 
of trying to win popularity at the expense of his authority and 
dignity, the public voice loudly accused them of trying to win his 
favour at the expense of their own honour and of the general weal. 
Yet, in spite of mortifications and humiliations, they both clung to 
office with the gripe of drowning men. Both attempted to propi- 
tiate the King by affecting a willingness to be reconciled to his 
Church. But there was a point at which Rochester was determined 
to stop. He went to the verge of apostasy: but there he recoiled: 
and the world, in consideration of the firmness with which he re- 
fused to take the final step, granted him a liberal amnesty for all 
former compliances. Sunderland, less scrupulous and less sensible 
of shame, resolved to atone for his late moderation, and to recover 
the royal confidence, by an act which, to a mind impressed with the 
importance of religious truth, must have appeared to be one of the 
most flagitious of crimes, and which even men of the world regard 
as the last excess of baseness. About a week before the day fixed 
for the great trial, it was publicly announced that he was a Papist. 
The King talked with delight of this triumph of divine grace. 
Courtiers and envoys kept their countenances as well as they could 
while the renegade protested that he had been long convinced of the 
impossibility of finding salvation out of the communion of Rome, 
and that his conscience would not let him rest till he had renounced 
the heresies in which he had been brought up. The news spread 
fast. At all the coffeehouses it was told how the prime minister of 
England, his feet bare and taper in his hand, had repaired to the 
royal chapel and knocked humbly for admittance ; how a priestly 
voice from within had demanded who was there; how Sunderland 


* Sunderland’s own narrative is, of course, not to be implicitly trusted. But 
oF UE pee since eee as a witness of what took place respecting the Irish Act 
of Settlement. 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 679 


had made answer that a poor sinner who had long wandered from 
the true Church entreated her to receive and to absolve him ; how 
the doors were opened ; and how the neophyte partook of the holy 
mysteries. * 

This scandalous apostasy could not but heighten the interest with 
which the nation looked forward to the day when the fate of the 
seven brave confessors of the English Church was to be decided. To 
pack a jury was now the great object of the King. The crown lawyers 
were ordered to make strict enquiry as to the sentiments of the per- 
sons who were registered in the freeholders’ book. Sir Samuel 
Astry, Clerk of the Crown, whose duty it was, in cases, of this de- 
scription, to select the names, was summoned to the palace, and had 
an interview with James in the presence of the Chancellor.+ Sir 
Samuel seems to have done his best. For, among the forty-eight 
persons whom he nominated, were said to be several servants of the 
King, and several Roman Catholics.{ But as the counsel for the 
Bishops had a right to strike off twelve, these persons were removed. 
The crown lawyers also struck off twelve. The list was thus re- 
duced to twenty-four. The first twelve who answered to their 
names were to try the issue. 

On the twenty-ninth of June, Westminster Hall, Old and New 
Palace Yard, and all the neighbouring streets to a great dis- 
tance were thronged with people. Such an auditory had never 
before and has never since been assembled in the Court of King’s 
Bande Thirty-five temporal peers of the realm were counted in the 
crowd. 

All the four Judges of the Court were on the bench. Wright, 
who presided, had been raised to a high place over the heads of many 
abler and more learned men solely on account of his unscrupulous 
servility. Alibone was a Papist, and owed his situation to that dis- 
pensing power, the legality of which was now in question. Hollo- 
way had hitherto been a serviceable tool of the government. Even 
Powell, whose character for honesty stood high, had borne a part in 
some proceedings which it is impossible to defend. He had, in the 
great case of Sir Edward Hales, with some hesitation, it is true, and 
after some delay, concurred with the majority of the bench, and had 
thus brought on his character a stain which his honourable conduct 
on this day completely effaced. 

The counsel were by no means fairly matched. The government 
had required from its law officers services so odious and disgraceful 


J 21, J 28, June 29, . J 26, 
* Barillon, aoe net 1688; Adda, ————; Van Citters, eats ; Johnstone, 
July1, July8, July 9, July 6, 
July 2, 1688; the Converts, a poem. ve ta 
une 26, 
+ Clarendon’s Diary, June 21, 1688. ¢ Van Citters, Fake 1688 


§ Johnstone, July 2, 1688, 


680 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


that all the ablest jurists and advocates of the Tory party had, one 
after another, refused to comply, and had been dismissed from their 
employments. Sir Thomas Powis, the Attorney General, was 
scarcely of the third rank in his profession. Sir William Williams, 
the Solicitor General, had great abilities and dauntless courage: but 
he wanted discretion; he loved wrangling; he had no command 
over his temper; and he was hated and despised by all political par- 
ties. 'The most conspicuous assistants of the Attorney and Solicitor 
were Serjeant Trinder, a Roman Catholic, and Sir Bartholomew 
Shower, Recorder of London, who had some legal learning, but 
whose fulsome apologies and endless repetitions were the jest of 
Westminster Hall. The government had wished to secure the ser- 
vices of Maynard : but he had plainly declared that he could not in 
conscience do what was asked of him.* 

On the other side were arrayed almost all the eminent forensic 
talents of the age. Sawyer and Finch, who, at the time of the ac- 
cession of James, had been Attorney and Solicitor General, and who, 
during the persecution of the Whigs in the late reign, had served the 
crown with but too much vehemence and success, were of counsel for 
the defendants. With them were joined two persons who, since age 
had diminished the activity of Maynard, were reputed the two best 
lawyers that could be found in the Inns of Court ; Pemberton, who 
had, in the time of Charles the Second, been Chief Justice of the 
King’s Bench, who had been removed from his high place on ac- 
count of his humanity and moderation, and who had resumed his 
practice at the bar ; and Pollexfen, who had long been at the head 
of the Western circuit, and who, though he had incurred much un- 
popularity by holding briefs for the crown at the Bloody Assizes, 
and particularly by appearing against Alice Lisle, was known to be 
at heart a Whig, if not arepublican. Sir Creswell Levinz was also 
there, aman of great knowledge and experience, but of singularly 
timid nature. He had been removed from the bench some years be- 
fore, because he was afraid to serve the purposes of the government. 
He was now afraid to appear as the advocate of the Bishops, and 
had at first refused to receive their retainer: but it had been inti- 
mated to him by the whole body of attorneys who employed him 
that, if he declined this brief, he should never have another.+ 

Sir George Treby, an able and zealous Whig, who had been Re- 
corder of London under the old charter, was on the same side. Sir 


John Holt, a still more eminent Whig lawyer, was not retained for. 


the defence, in consequence, it should seem, of some prejudice con- 
ceived against him by Sancroft, but was privately consulted on the case 


* Johnstone, July 2, 1688. 

+t Ibid, The editor of Levinz’s Reports expresses great wonder that, after the 
Revolution, Levinz was not replaced on the bench, The facts related by John 
stone may perhaps explain the seeming injustice. 


joes ie 


a a ee 


* HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 681 


by the Bishop of London.* The junior counsel for the Bishops was a 
young barristernamed John Somers, He had no advantages of birth 
or fortune; nor had he yet had any opportunity of distinguishing him- 
self before the eyes of the public: but his genius, his industry, bis 
great and various accomplishments, were well known to a small 
circle of friends; and, in spite of his Whig opinions, his pertinent 
and lucid mode of arguing and the constant propriety of his 
demeanour had already secured to him the ear of the Court of 
King’s Bench. The importance of obtaining his services had 
been strongly represented to the Bishops by Johnstone ; and Pol- 
lexfen, it is said, had declared that no man in Westminster Hall 
was so well qualified to treat a historical and constitutional question 
as Somers. ; 

The jury was sworn. It consisted of persons of highly respecta- 
ble station. The foreman was Sir Roger Langley, a baronet of old 
and honourable family. With him were joined a knight and ten 
esquires, several of whom are known to have been men of large pds- 
sessions. There were some Nonconformists in the number ; for the 
Bishops had wisely resolved not to show any distrust of the Prot- 
estant Dissenters. One name-excited considerable alarm, that of 
Michael Arnold. He was brewer to the palace: and it was ap- 
prehended that the government counted on his voice. The story 
goes that he complained bitterly of the position in which he found 
himself. ‘* Whatever I do,” he said, ‘‘I am sure to be half ruined. 
If I say Not Guilty, I shall brew no more for the King; and if I say 
Guilty, I shall brew no more for anybody else.”’+ iy 

The trial then commenced, a trial which, even when coolly 
perused after the lapse of more than a century and a half, has all the 
interest of a drama. The advocates contended on both sides with 
far more than professional keenness and vehemence; the audience 
listened with as much anxiety asif the fate of every one of them 
was to be decided by the verdict; and the turns of fortune were so 
sudden and amazing that the multitude repeatedly passed in a single 
minute from anxiety to exultation, and back again from exultation 
to still deeper anxiety. 

The information charged the Bishops with having written or pub- 
lished, in the county of Middlesex, false, malicious, and seditious 
libel. The Attorney and Solicitor first tried to prove the writing. 
For this purpose several persons were called to speak to the hands of 
the Bishops. But the witnesses were so unwilling that hardly a 
single plain answer could be extracted from any of them. Pember- 
ton, Pollexfen, and Levinz contended that there was no evidence to 
go to the jury. Two of the Judges, Holloway and Powell, declared 


———_— 


* T draw this inference froma letter of Compton to Sancroft, dated the 12th 
of June. 
+ Revolution Politics. 


682 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


themselves of the same opinion ; and the hopes of the spectators rose 
high. All at once the crown lawyers announced their intention to 
take another line. Powis, with shame and reluctance which he 
could not dissemble, put into the witness box Blathwayt, a Clerk of 
the Privy Council, who had been present when the King interro- 
gated the Bishops. Blathwayt swore that he had heard them own 
their signatures. His testimony was decisive. ‘‘ Why,” said Judge 
Holloway to the Attorney, ‘‘when you had such evidence, did you 
not produce it at first, without all this waste of time?” It soon ap- 
peared why the counsel for the crown had been unwilling without 
absolute necessity, to resort to this mode of proof. Pemberton stop- 
ped Blathwayt, subjected him to a searching cross examination, and 
insisted upon having all that had passed between the King and the 
defendants fully related. ‘‘ That is a pretty thing indeed,” cried 
Williams. ‘‘ Do you think,” said Powis, ‘‘ that you are at liberty to 
ask our witnesses any impertinent question that comcs into your 
heads?” The advocates of the Bishops were not men to be so put 
down. ‘‘ He is sworn,” said Pollexfen, ‘‘ to tell the truth and the 
whole truth; and an answer we must and will have.” 'The witness 
shufed, equivocated, pretended to misunderstand the questions, 
implored the protection of the Court. But he was in hands from 
which it was not easy to escape. At length the Attorney again in- 
terposed. ‘‘If,” he said, ‘‘ you persist in asking such a question, 
tell us, at least, what use you mean to make of it.” Pemberton, 
who, through the whole trial, did his duty manfully and ably, 
replied without hesitation: ‘‘My Lords, I will answer Mr. Attorney. 
I will deal plainly with the Court. If the Bishops owned this paper 
under a promise from His Majesty that their confession should not 
be used against them, I hope that no unfair advantage will be taken 
of them.” ‘‘ You put on His Majesty what I dare hardly name,” 
said Williams. “‘ Since you will be so pressing, I demand, for the 
King, that the question may be recorded.” ‘‘ What do mean, Mr. 
Solicitor ?” said Sawyer, interposing. ‘‘I know what I mean,” said 
the apostate : ‘‘ I desire that the question may be recorded in court.” 
‘*Record what you will. Iam not afraid of you, Mr. Solicitor,” 
said Pemberton. Then came a loud and fierce altercation, which 
Wright could with difficulty quiet. In other circumstances, he would 
probably have ordered the question to be recorded, and Pemberton 
to be committed. But on this great day the unjust Judge was over- 
awed. He often cast aside glance towards the thick rows of Earls 
and Barons by whom he was watched, and before whom, in the next 
Parliament, he might stand at the bar. He looked, a bystandcr 
said, as if all the peers present had halters in their pockets.* At 
length Blathwayt was forced to give.a full account of what had passed. 


* This is the expression of an eyewitness. It is in a newsletter in the Mackin- 
tosh Collection. 


/ 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 683 


It appeared that the King had entered into no express covenant 
with the Bishops. But it appeared also that the Bishops might not 
unreasonably think that there was an implied engagement. Indeed 
from the unwillingness of the crown lawyers to put the Clerk of the 
Council into the witness box, and from the vehemence with which 
they objected to Pemberton’s cross examination, it is plain that they 
were themselves of this opinion. 

However the handwriting was now proved. But a new and serious 
objection was raised. It was not sufficient to prove that the Bishops 
had written the alleged libel. It was necessary to prove also that 
they had written it in the county of Middlesex. And not only was 
it out of the power of the Attorney and Solicitor to prove this: but it 
was in the powcr of the defendants to prove the contrary. For it so 
happened that Sancroft had never once left the palace at Lambeth 
from the time when the Order in Council appeared till after the peti- 
tion was in the King’s hands. The whole case for the prosecution 
had therefore completely broken down; and the audience, with great 
glee, expected a speedy acquittal. 

The crown lawyers then changed their ground again, abandoned 
altogether the charge of writing a libel, and undertook to prove 
that the Bishops had published a libel in the county of Middlesex. 
The difficulties were great. The delivery of the petition to the King 
was undoubtedly, in the eye of the law, a publication. But how was 
this delivery to be proved? No person had been present at the audi- 
ence in the royal closet except the King and the defendants. The 
King could not well be sworn. It was therefore only by the admis- 
sions of the defendants that the fact of publication could be estab- 
lished. Blathwayt was again examined, but in vain. He well re- 
membered, he said, that the Bishops owned their hands; but he did 
not remember that they owned the paper which lay on the table of 
the Privy Council to be the same paper which they had delivered to 
the King, or that they were even interrogated on that point. Several 
other official men who had been in attendance on the Council were 
called, and among them Samuel Pepys, Secretary of the Admiralty, 
but none of them could remember that anything was said about the 
delivery. It was to no purpose that Williams put leading questions 
till the counsel on the other side declared that such twisting, such 
wiredrawing, was never seen ina court of justice, and till Wright 
himself was forced to admit that the Solicitor’s mode of examination 
was contrary to all rule. As witness after witness answered in the 
negative, roars of laughter and shouts of triumph, which the Judges 
did not even attempt to silence, shook the hall. 

It seemed that at length this hard fight had been won. The case 
for the crown was closed. Had the counscl for the Bishops remained 
silent, an acquittal was certain; for nothing which the most corrupt 
and shameless Judge could venture to call legal evidence of publica- 
tion had been given. The Chief Justice was beginning to charge the 


684 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


jury, and would undoubtedly have directed them to acquit the de- 


fendants; but Finch, too anxious to be perfectly discreet, interfered, 


and begged to be heard. ‘‘If you will be heard,” said Wright, ‘‘ you~ 


shall be heard; but you donot understand your own interests.” The 
other counsel for the defence made Finch sit down, and begged the 
Chief Justice to proceed. He was about to do so, when a messenger 
came to the Solicitor General with news that Lord Sunderland could 
prove the publication, and would come down to the court immedi- 
ately. Wright maliciously told the counsel for the defence that they 
had only themselves to thank for the turn which things had taken. 
The countenances of the great mnltitude fell. Finch was, during 
some hours, the most unpopular man in the country. Why could he 
not sit still as his betters, Sawyer, Pemberton, and Pollexfen, had 
done? His love of meddling, his ambition to make a fine speech, 
had ruined everything. 
Meanwhile the Lord President was brought in a sedan chair 
through the hall. Nota hat moved as he passed; and many voices 
cried out ‘‘Popish dog.” He came into court pale and trembling, 
with eyes fixed on the ground, and gave his evidence in a faltering 
voice. He swore that the Bishops had informed him of their inten- 


tion to present a petition to the King, and that they had been admit-  — 


ted into the royal closet for that purpose. This circumstance, coup- 
led with the circumstance that, after they left the closet, there was in 
the King’s hands a petition signed by them, was such proof as might 
reasonably satisfy a jury of the fact of the publication. 

Publication in Middlesex was then proved. But was the paper 


thus published a false, malicious, and seditious libel? Hitherto the ~ 


matter in dispute had been whethera fact which everybody well knew 
to be true could be proved according to technical rules of evidence; 
but now the contest became one of deeper interest. It was necessary 
to inquire into the limits of prerogative and liberty, into the right of the 
King to dispense with statutes, into the right of the subject to petition 
for the redress of grievances. During three hours the counsel for the 
petitioners argued with great force in defence of the fundamental 
principles of the constitution, and proved from the Journals of the 
House of Commons that the Bishops had affirmed no more than the 
truth when they. represented to the King that the dispensing power 
which he claimed had been repeatedly declared illegal by Parlia- 
ment. Somers rose last. He spoke little more than five minutes; but 
every word was full of weighty matter; and when he sate down his 
reputation as an orator and a constitutional lawyer was established. 
He went through the expressions which were used in the information 
to describe the offence imputed to the Bishops, and showed that every 
word, whether adjective or substantive, was altogether inappropriate. 
The offence imputed was a false, a malicious, a seditious libel. False 
the paper was not; for every fact which it set forth had been shown 
from the Journals of Parliament to be true. Malicious the paper 


{ 
d 
; 
‘ 
7 
‘ 
, 
‘ 
| 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 685 


was not; for the defendants had not sought an occasion of strife, but 
had been placed by the government in such a situation that they 
must either oppose themselves to the royal will, or violate the most 
sacred obligations of conscience and honour. Seditious the paper 
was not; for it had not been scattered by the writers among the rab- 
ble, but delivered privately into the hands of the King alone; and a 
libel it was not, but a decent petition such as, by the laws of England, 
nay by the laws of imperial Rome, by the laws of all civilized states, 
a subject who thinks himself aggrieved may with propriety present 
to the sovereign. 

The Attorney replied shortly and feebly. The Solicitor spoke at 
great length and with great acrimony, and was often interrupted by 
the clamours and hisses of the audience. He went so far as to lay it 
down thatno subject or body of subjects, except the Houses of Parlia- 
_ ment, had aright to petition the King. The galleries were furious; 

and the Chief Justice himself stood aghast at the effrontery of this 
venal turncoat. 

At length Wright proceeded to sum up the evidence. His language 
showed that the awe in which he stood of the government was temper- 
‘ed by the awe with which the audience, so numerous, so splendid, and 

so strongly excited, had impressed him. He said that he would give 
no opinion on the question of the dispensing power; that it was not 
necessary for him to do so; that he could not agree with much of the 
Solicitor’s speech; that it was the right of the subject to petition; but 
that the particular petition before the Court was improperly worded, 
and was, in the contemplation of law, a libel. Allibone was of the 
same mind, but, in giving his opinion, showed such gross ignorance 
of law and history as brought on him the contempt of all who heard 
him. Holloway evaded the question of the dispensing power, but 
said that the petition seemed to him to be such as subjects who think 
themselves aggrieved are entitled to present, aud therefore ro libel. 
Powell took a bolder course. He avowed thet, in his judgment, the 
Declaration of Indulgence was a nullity, and that the dispensing 
power, as lately exercised, was utterly inconsistent with all law. If 
these encroachments of prerogative were allowed, there was an end 
of Parliaments. The whole legislative authority would be in the 
King. ‘‘ That issue, gentlemen,” he said, ‘‘I leave to God and to 
your consciences.””* 

It was dark before the jury retired to consider of their verdict. 
The night was a night of intense anxiety. Some letters are extant 
which were despatched during that period of suspense, and which 
have therefore an interest of apeculiar kind. ‘‘It is very late,” wrote 
the Papal Nuncio, ‘‘ and the decision is not yet known. The judges 
and the culprits have gone to their own homes. The jury remain to- 
gether. To-morrow we shall learn the event of this great struggle.” 


* See the proceedings in the collection of State Trials. I have taken some 
touches from Johnstone, and some from Van Citters. 


686 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


The solicitor for the Bishops sate up all night with a body of ser- 
vants on the stairs leading to the room where the jury was consult- 
ing. It was absolutely necessary to watch the officers who watched 
the doors; for those officers were supposed to be in the interest of 
the crown, and might, if not carefully observed, have furnished a 
courtly juryman with food, which would have enabled him to 
starve out the other eleven. Strict guard was therefore kept. Not 
even a candle to light a pipe was permitted to enter. Some basins of 
water for washing were suffered to pass at about four in the morn- 
ing. The jurymen, raging with thirst, soon lapped up the whole. 
Great numbers of people walked the neighbouring streets till dawn. 
Every hour a messenger came from Whitehall to know what was 
passing. Voices, high in altercation, were repeatedly heard within 
the room: but nothing certain was known.* 

At first nine were for acquitting and three for convicting. Twoof 
the minority soon gave way: but Arnold was obstinate. Thomas 
Austin, a country gentleman of great estate, who had paid close 
attention to the evidence and speeches, and had taken full notes, 
wished to argue the question. Arnold declined. He was not used, 
he doggedly said, to reasoning and debating. His conscience was 
not satisfied; and he should not acquit the Bishops. ‘if you come 
to that,” said Austin, ‘‘look at me. I am the largest and the strong- 
est of the twelve; and before I find such a petition as this a libel, 
here I will stay till 1am no bigger than a tobacco pipe.” It was six 
in the morning before Arnold yielded. It Was soon known that the 
jury were agreed: but what the verdict would be was still a secret.+ 

At ten the Court again met. The crowd was greater than ever. 
The jury appeared in the box; and there was a breathless stillness, 

Sir Samuel Astry spoke. ‘‘ Do you find the defendants, or any of 
them, guilty of the misdemeanor whereof they are impeached, or 
not guilty?” Sir Roger Langley answered, ‘‘ Not Guilty.” As 
the words were uttered, Halifax sprang up and waved his hat. At 
that signal, benches and galleries raised a shout. In a moment ten 
thousand persons who crowded the great hall, replied with a still 
louder shout, which made the old oaken roof crack; and in another 
moment the innumerable throng without set up a third huzza, 
which was keard at Temple Bar. The boats which covered the 
Thames gave an answering cheer. <A peal of gunpowder was heard 
on the water, and another, and another; and so in a few moments, 
the glad tidings went flying past the Savoy and the Friars to London ~ 
Bridge, and to the forest of masts below. As the news spread, 
streets and squares, market-places and coffeehouses, broke forth into 
acclamations. Yet were the acclamations less strange than the 


ken 


* Johnstone, July 2, 1688; Letter from Mr. Ince to the Archbishop, dated at 
six o’clock in the morning; Tanner MSS.; Revolution Politics. 
t+ Johnstone, July 2, 1688. 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 687 


weeping. For the feelings of men had been wound up to sucha 
point that at length the stern English nature, so little used to outward 
signs of emotion, gave way, and thousands sobbed aloud for very 
joy. Meanwhile, from the outskirts of the multitude, horsemen 
were spurring off to bear along all the great roads intelligence of the 
victory of our Church and nation. Yet not even that astounding 
explosion could awe the bitter and intrepid spirit of the Solicitor. 
Striving to make himself heard above the din, he called on the 
Judges to commit those who had violated, by clamour, the dignity 
of a court of justice. One of the rejoicing populace was seized. 
But the tribunal felt that it would be absurd to punish a single indi- 
vidual for an offence common to hundreds of thousands, and dis- 
missed him with a gentle reprimand.* 

It was vain to think of passing at that moment to any other busi- 
ness. Indeed, the roar of the multitude was such that, during half 
an hour, scarcely a word could be heard in the court. Williams got 
to his coach amidst a tempest of hisses and curses. Cartwright, whose 
curiosity was ungovernable, had been guilty of the folly and inde- 
cency of coming to Westminster in order to hear the decision. He 
was recognised by his sacerdotal garb and by his corpulent figure, 
and was hooted through the hall. ‘‘ Take care,” said one, ‘‘ of the 
wolf in sheep’s clothing.” ‘‘ Make room,” cried another, ‘‘for the 
man with the Pope in his belly.” + 

The acquitted prelates took refuge in the nearest chapel from the 
crowd which implored their blessings. Many churches were open 
on that morning throughout the capital; and many pious persons 
repaired thither. The bells of all the parishes of the City and lib- 
erties were ringing. The jury meanwhile could scarcely make their 
way out of the hall. They were forced to shake hands with hun- 
dreds. ‘‘God bless you!” cried the people; ‘‘God prosper your 
families! you have done like honest goodnatured gentlemen: you have 
saved us all to-day.” As the noblemen who had attended to support 
the good cause drove off, they flung from their carriage windows 
handsful of money, and bade the crowd drink to the health of the 
King, the Bishops, and the jury.f 


* State Trials; Oldmixon, 739; Clarendon’s Diary, June 25, 1688; Johnstone, 
July 2; Van Citters, July 3-13; Adda, July 6-16; Luttrel’s Diary; Barillon, 
July 2-12. 

an Citters, July 3-13. The gravity with which he tells the story has a 
comic effect. ‘‘ Den Bisschop van Chester, wie seer de partie van het hof houdt, 
om te voldoen aan syne gewoone nieusgierigheyt, hem op dien tyt in Westmin- 
ster Hall mede hebbende lJaten vinden, in het uytgaan doorgaans was uytge- 
kreten voor een grypende wolf in schaaps kleederen; en hy synde een heer van 
hooge stature en vollyvig, spotsgewyse alomme geroepen was dat men voor 
hem plaats moeste maken, om te laten passen, gelyck ook geschiede, om dat 
ae a uytschreeuwden en hem in het aansigt seyden, hy den Paus in syn buyck 

adde. 

t Luttrell; Van Citters, July 3-13, 1688. ‘‘Soo syn in tegendeel gedagte jurys 
met de uyterste acclamatie en alle teyckenen van genegenheyt en danckbaar~ 


688 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


The Attorney went with the tidings to Sunderland, who happened 
to be conversing with the Nuncio. ‘‘ Never,” said Powis, ‘‘ within 
man’s memory, have there been such shouts and tears of joy as 
today.” * The King had that morning visited the camp on Houns- 
low Heath. Sunderland instantly sent a courier with the news. 
James was in Lord Feversham’s tent when the express arrived. 
He was greatly disturbed, and exclaimed in French, ‘‘So much the 
worse for them.” He soon set out for London. While he was pres- 
ent, respect prevented the soldiers from giving a loose to their feel- 
ings; but he had scarcely quitted the camp when he heard a great 
shouting behind him. He was surprised, and asked what that 


uproar meant. ‘‘ Nothing,” was the answer: ‘‘ the soldiers are glad 
that the Bishops are acquitted.” ‘‘Do you call that nothing?” said 
James. And then he repeated. ‘‘So much the worse for them.”+ 


He might well be out of temper. His defeat had been com- 
plete and most humiliating. Had the prelates escaped on ac- 
count of some technical defect in the case for the crown, had they . 
escaped because they had not written the petition in Middlesex, 
or because it was impossible to prove, according to the strict rules of 
law, that they had delivered to the King the paper for which they 
were called in question, the prerogative would have suffered no 
shock. Happily for the country, the fact of publication had been 
fully established. The council for the defence had therefore been 
forced to attack the dispensing power. They had attacked it with 
great learning, eloquence, and boldness. The advocates of the gov- . 
ernment had been by universal acknowledgment overmatched in the 
contest. Nota single judge had ventured to declare that the Decla- 
ration of Indulgence was legal. One Judge had in the strongest 
terms pronounced it illegal. The language of the whole town was 
that the dispensing power had received a fatal blow. Finch, who. 
had the day before been universally reviled, was now universally ap- 
plauded. He had been unwilling, it was said, to let the case be de- 
cided in a way which would nave left the great constitutional ques- 
tion still doubtful. He had felt that a verdict which should acquit 
his clients without condemning the Declaration of Indulgence, would 
be but half a victory. It is certain that Finch deserved neither the 


heyt in het door passeren van de gemeente ontvangen. Honderden vielen haar 
om den hals met alle bedenckelycke wewensch van segen en geluck over hare 
ie thes en familien, om dat sy haar se heusch en eerlyck buyten verwag- 
inge als het ware in desen gedragen hadden. Veele van de grooten en kleynen 
adel wierpen in het wegryden handen vol gelt onder de armen luyden, om op 
de gesontheyt van den Coning, der Heeren Prelaten, en de Jurys te drincken.”’ 
*“* Mi trovava con Milord Sunderland la stessa mattina, quando venne l’Av- 
vocato Generale a rendergli conto del successo, e disse, che mai pit’ a memoria 
a’huomini si era sentito un applauso, mescolato di voci e lagrime di giubilo, 
peo a quello che veniva egli di vedere in quest’ occasione.”"—Adda, July 6-16, _ 


+ Burnet, i. 744; Van Citters, July 3-13, 1688. 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 689 


reproaches which had been cast on him while the event was doubt- 
ful, nor the praises which he received when it had proved happy. 
It was absurd to.blame him because, during the short delay which 
he occasioned, the crown lawyers unexpectedly discovered new evi- 
dence. It was equally absurd to suppose that he deliberately exposed 
his clients to risk, in order to establish a general principle; and still 
more absurd was it to praise him for what would have been a gross 
violation of professional duty. 

That joyful day was followed by a not less joyful evening. The 
Bishops, and some of their most respectable friends, in vain exerted 
themselves to prevent tumultuous demonstrations of public feeling. 
Never within the memory of the oldest, not even on that night on 
which it was known through London that the army of Scotland had 
declared for a free Parliament, had the streets been in such a glare 
with bonfires. Round every bonfire crowds were drinking good 
health to the Bishops and confusion to the Papists. The windows 
were lighted with rows of candles. Each row consisted of seven; and 
the taper in the centre, which was taller than the rest, represented 
the Primate. The noise of rockets, squibs, and firearms, was inces- 
sant. One huge pile of faggots blazed right in front of the great gate of 
Whitehall. Others were lighted before the doors of Roman Catholic 
peers. Lord Arundell of Wardour wisely quieted the mob with a 
little money; but af Salisbury House in the Strand, an attempt at re- 
sistance was made. Lord Salisbury’s servants sallied out and fired: 
. but they killed only the unfortunate beadle of the parish, who had 
come thither to put out the fire; and they were soon routed and 
driven back into the house. None of the spectacles of that night in- 
terested the common people so much as one with which they had, a 
few years before, been familiar, and which they now, after a long 
interval, enjoyed once more, the burning of the Pope. This once 
familiar pageant is known to our generation only by descriptions and 
engravings. A figure, by no means resembling those rude represen- 
tations of Guy Faux which are still paraded on the fifth of Novem. 
ber, but made of wax with some skill, and adorned at no small ex- 
pense with robes and a tiara, was mounted on a chair resembling that 
in which the Bishops of Rome are still, on some great festivals, borne 
through St. Peter’s Church to the high altar. His Holiness was gen- 
erally accompanied by a train of Cardinals and Jesuits. At his ear 
stood a buffoon disguised as a devil with horns and tail. No rich and 
zealous Protestant grudged his guinea on such an occasion, and, if 
rumour could be trusted, the cost of the procession was not less than 
a thousand pounds. After the Pope had been borne some time in 
state over the heads of the multitude, he was committed to the flames 
with loud acclamations. In the time of the popularity of Oates and 
Shaftesbury, this show was exhibited annually in Fleet Street before 
the windows of the Whig Club on the anniversary of the birth of 
Queen Elizabeth. Such was the celebrity of these grotesque rites, that 


690 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, 


Barillon once risked his life in order to peep at them from a hiding 
place.* But from the day when the Rye House plot was discovered, 
till the day of the acquittal of the Bishops, the ceremony had been 
disused. Now, however, several Popes made their appearance in dif- 
ferent parts of London. The Nuncio was much shocked; and the King 
was more hurt by this insult to his Church than by all the other af- 
fronts which he had received. The magistrates, however, could do 
nothing. The Sunday had dawned, and the bells of the parish 
churches were ringing for early prayers, before the fires began to 
languish and the crowd to disperse. A proclamation was speedily put 
forth against the rioters. Many of them, mostly young apprentices, 
were apprehended; but the bills were thrown out at the Middlesex 
sessions. The Justices, many of whom were Roman Catholics, ex- 
postulated with the grand jury and sent them three or four times back, 
but to no purpose. + 

Meanwhile the glad tidings were flying to every part of the king- 
dom, and were everywhere received with rapture. Gloucester, Bed- 
ford, and Lichfield were among the places which were distinguished 
by peculiar zeal: but Bristol and Norwich, which stood nearest to 
London in population and wealth, approached nearest to London iu 
enthusiasm on this joyful occasion. 

The prosecution of the Bishops is an event which stands by itself in 
our history. It was the first and last occasion on which two feel- 
ings of tremendous potency, two feelings which have generally been 
opposed to each other, and either of which, when strongly excited, 
has sufficed to convulse the state, were united in perfect harmony. 
Those feelings were love of the Church and love of freedom. During 
many generations every violent outbreak of High Church feeling, 
with one exception, has been unfavourable to civil liberty; every 
violent outbreak of zeal for liberty, with one exception, has been un- 
favourable to the authority and influence of the prelacy and the 
priesthood. In 1688 the cause of the hierarchy was for a moment 
that of the popular party. More than nine thousand clergymen, with 
the Primate and his most respectable suffragans at their head, offered 
themselves to endure bonds and the spoiling of their goods for the 
great fundamental principle of our free constitution. The effect was 
a coalition which included the most zealous Cavaliers, the most zeal- 
ous Republicans, and all the intermediate sections of the community. 
The spirit which had supported Hampden in the preceding generation, 
the spirit which, in the succeeding generation, supported Sachevervell, 


* See @ very curious narrative published, among other papers, in 1710, by 
Danby, then Duke of Leeds. There is an amusing account of the ceremony of 
burning a Pope in North’s Examen, 570. See also the note on the Epilogue to 
the Tragedy of GHdipus in Scott’s edition of Dryden. 

t+ Reresby’s Memoirs; Van Citters, July 3-18, 1688; Adda, July 6-16; Barillon, 
aly gees Luttrell’s Diary; Newsletter of July 4; Oldmixon, 736; Ellis Corre 
spondence, 1" ° 


HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 691 


combined to support the Archbishop who was Hampden and Sach- 
evervell in-one. Those classes of society which are most deeply 
interested in the preservation of order, which in troubled times are 
generally most ready to strengthen the hands of government, and 
which have a natural antipathy to agitators, followed, without scruple, 
the guidance of a venerable man, the first peer of the Parliament, 
the first minister of the Church, a Tory in politics, a saint in manners, 
whom tyranny had ‘in his own despite turned into a demagogue. 
Many, on the other hand, who had always abhorred episcopacy, as a 
relic of Popery, and as an instrument of arbitrary power, now asked 
on bended knees the blessing of a prelate who was ready to wear fet- 
ters and to lay his aged limbs on bare stones rather than betray the 
interests of the Protestant religion and set the prerogative above the 
laws. With love of the Church and with love of freedom was. min- 
gled, at this great crisis, a third feeling which is among the most 
honourable peculiarities of our national character. An individual 
oppressed by power, even when destitute of all claim to public re- 
spect and gratitude, generally finds strong sympathy among us. 
Thus, in the time of our grandfathers, society was thrown into con- 
fusion by the persecution of Wilkes. We have ourselves seen the 
nation roused to madness by the wrongs of Queen Caroline. It is 
probable, therefore, that even if no great political or religious interest 
had been staked on the event of the proceeding against the Bishops, 
England would not have seen, without strong emotions of pity and 
anger, old men of stainless virtue pursued by the vengeance of a harsh 
and inexorable prince who owed to their fidelity the crown which he 
wore. 

Actuated by these sentiments our ancestors arrayed themselves 
against the government in one huge and compact mass. All ranks, 
all parties, all Protestant sects, made up that vast phalanx. In the 
van were the Lords Spiritual and Temporal. Then came the landed 
gentry and the clergy, both the Universities, all the Inns of Court, 
merchants, shopkeepers, farmers, the porters who plied in the streets 
of the great towns, the peasants who ploughed the fields. The league 
against the King included the very foremost men who manned his 
ships, the very sentinels who guarded his palace. The names of 
Whig and Tory were for a moment forgotten. The old Exclusionist 
took the old Abhorrer by the hand. LEpiscopalians, Presbyterians, 
Independents, Baptists, forgot their long feud, and remembered only 
their common Protestantism and their common danger. Divines bred 
in the school of Laud talked loudly, not only of toleration, but of 
comprehension. The Archbishop soon after his acquittal put forth 
a pastoral letter which is one of the most remarkable compositions of 
that age. He had, from his youth up, been at war with the Noncon- 
formists, and had repeatedly assailed them with unjust and unchris- 
tian asperity. His principal work was a hideous caricature of the 


692 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 


Calvinistic theology.* He had drawn up for the thirtieth of Jan- 
uary and for the twenty-ninth of May forms of prayer which re- 
flected on the Puritans in language so strong that the government had 
thought fit to soften it down. But now his heart was melted and 
opencd. He solemnly enjoined the Bishops and Clergy to have a 
very tender regard to their brethren the Protestant Dissenters, to visit 
them often, to entertain them hospitably, to discourse with them 
civilly, to persuade them, if it might be, to conform to the Church, 
but, if that were found impossible, to join them heartily and affec- 
tionately in exertions for the blessed cause of the Reformation. + 
Many pious persons in subsequent years remembered that time 
with bitter regret. They described it as a short glimpse of a golden 
age between two iron ages. Such Jamentation, though natural, was 
not reasonable. The coalition of 1688 was produced, and could be 
produced, only by tyranny which approached to insanity, and by 
danger which threatened at once all the great institutions of the coun- 
try. If there has never since been similar union, the reason is that 
there has never since been similar misgovernment. It must be re- 
membered that, though concord is in itself better than discord, dis- 
cord may indicate a better state of things than is indicated by con- 
cord. Calamity and peril often force men to combine. Prosperity 
and security often encourage them to separate. 


* The Fur Preedestinus. 
+ This document will be found in the first of the twelve collections of papers 


relating to the affairs of England, printed at the end of 1688 and the beginni 
of 1689. It was put forth on the 26th of July, not quite a month after the trial. 
Loyd of Saint Asaph about the same time told Henry Wharton that the Bishops 
purposed to adopt an entirely new policy towards the Protestant Dissenters: 
“Omni modo curatoros ut ecclesia sordibus et corruptelis penitus exueretur; ut. 
sectariis reformatis reditus in ecclesiz sinum exoptati occasio ac ratio concede- 
retur, si qui sobrii et pii essent; ut pertinacibus interim jugum laveretur, ex- 
tinctis penitus legibus mulcatoriis,”—Excerpta ex Vita H. Wharton. 


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